I’ve been a writer all my life, and a professional writer for more than half of my 51 years. In a decade writing for a newspaper, I often had to trim back a story. I knew all about tight word counts.

Or so I thought. My foster mother, Marylee Murphy, died suddenly at home recently, and I was heartbroken. I met Marylee and her husband John through their son, Jonathan. I was at their house so much from 1983 on that Erin began calling me her part-time brother. When my biological mother died in 1986, my life became a tumultuous hell. If not for the Murphys, my surrogate family, I doubt that I’d have survived.

This should give you an inkling of who Marylee was. Of ten Murphy children, four were adopted, and there were so many others: foster children, kids in crisis, those in need of a warm bed, or just strays. I know; I was all four!

Marylee taught me that “family” didn’t have to be blood. Family is where there is love. She loved and accepted me for nearly 38 years and guided me through some terrible trials. She was always there for me, always a voice of reason and honesty, and always a sounding board. She saw me through a failed marriage and made bridesmaids’ dresses for my successful second. She was someone to discuss my writing with, and someone who, although a Christian, never faulted me for not sharing her faith.

The family asked me to write her obituary; given the great expense of newspaper publication, they asked me to stick to 500 words. Cobbling together pieces from my part-time siblings’ Facebook posts and messages to me, and wordsmithing it to tell the story of who Marylee was, made me realize that effectively summing up nearly 74 years of a well-lived life in 500 words was impossible. To have to try was tragic.

How do you abbreviate an entire existence in 500 words? And imagine the millions who die without public obituaries or even death notices. Imagine the billions across history who lived their lives but will never be known. I think of Carl Sagan’s reflections on the famous “pale blue dot” photo of Earth from 6 billion kilometers away; he noted that everyone who had ever lived, and everything humanity has known or experienced, happened on this tiny rock in a vast universe. Everything we know is here on that rock, and at least others should know who we were.

You can’t really tell anyone’s story in 500 words. What I’ve said about Marylee is just the tip of my personal iceberg; anyone in her family could do the same, and we’d only just be getting started. Any human life deserves more than 500 words. Consider that this article is about 650 words, and I haven’t said much.

Marylee was everything to those who loved her. If you didn’t know her, she’s just a name on your screen. So I hope you’ll click on the link below and read her obituary, and perhaps know a little bit of her. And when you do, think about the people who might write your few words one day, and what you’d like said about you when you’re gone. In a hundred years, who will see your social-media posts or read your obituary? Those who do won’t experience the depth of what it was like to know you. Make your mark now, to those who matter in your life, because eventually we’ll all vanish forever, unknown to those who come later.

Perhaps you’ll be moved by the fleeting words that tell you who Marylee was. Maybe you’ll be moved to write down your thoughts about your life so that generations to come might one day know you even a little… you, who will have existed in the blink of an eye, lost in the endless eons.

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Marylee Murphy’s obituary:
https://obituaries.bangordailynews.com/obituary/marylee-murphy-1080027096