N4L 039: Repost - “Find the Good” by Heather Lende

SUMMARY

For more than 20 years, Heather Lende has written obituaries for the Chilkat Valley News in the tiny town of Haines, Alaska. Now, the New York Times bestselling author weaves her own life lessons together with recollections of the deceased. And we get Find the Good: Unexpected Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer, a gentle, insightful memoir mixed with humor and sensitivity.

More than a storyteller, Lende is a “story catcher” who knows the challenge of describing life with words that both honor the dead and bless the living. But she manages well. "Find the Good" reminds us all to live more gratefully by seeing life through the lens of optimism.

00:25   Intro to author Heather Lende from Haines, Alaska

01:25   Obituary writers describe a life in 500-600 words

01:30   Lende’s mantra: “Find the good.”

02:00   Writing our own obituaries, every day

02:25   Unpacking the title, “Find the Good”

03:45   Countering sadness

04:15   Lende’s career begins in 1996

05:45   Characteristics and qualifications of a good obituary writer

07:45   Be a “story catcher”

08:45   Who approves obituaries?

11:00   Lende’s own brush with death changes everything

12:20   Recovery breeds empathy and gratitude

12:45   Wounds, seen and unseen

14:00   Deaths hit close to home

15:00   “I’m just the chronicler of these tragedies,” trying to give families hope

15:40   Using her art to make a difference and move hearts

16:30   Lende faces her own grief with unwed daughter’s pregnancy

17:00   “Draw lines in the sand so you can move them.”

17:45   Wisdom from an elderly Southern lady

19:00   Sometimes the “Big Worry” isn’t a worry at all

19:40   “Practice staggered breathing”

20:25   Life lessons from choir metaphors

22:00   “Writing obituaries is my way of transcending the bad news.”

22:25   The story of Richard Boyce, a fisherman lost at sea

24:45   The power of a father’s love

25:20   Story of Russ, the town cemetery gardener

26:00   A long-lost son returns, dies, and gives his home to hospice

27:00   The power of simple greeting cards and the family Bible

28:32   The story of Rene—writing a pre-death obituary for a breast-cancer victim

29:02   What would you do with your remaining days?

30:42   Quantity vs. quality of life

30:59   Everyday blessings

31:20   Life’s two greatest regrets

31:45   Longing for small-town living

32:10   The downsides of small-town living

34:05   Navigating “spiritual boot camp”

35:00   Nurturing the skill of “finding the good”

35:20   Hearts turn to stone, but stones also turn to hearts

36:15   The story of Vic—proof people can change

37:15   How to get a good obituary

37:45   Who will write Lende’s obituary?

38:30   The immediate value of an obituary

39:10   What Lende hopes her readers feel

39:40   How to create small towns anywhere

QUOTES FROM LENDE

"If indeed all the wisdom I had in my heart was to be summed up in final words and it was difficult to speak more than, say, three, what would I rasp before my soul flew up the chimney? Find the good. I surprised myself with this pretty great notion. Find the good. That’s enough. That’s plenty. I could leave my family with that."

"Awful events are followed by dozens and dozens of good deeds. It’s not that misery loves company, exactly; rather, it’s that suffering, in all its forms, and our response to it, binds us together across dinner tables, neighborhoods, towns and cities, and even time. Bad doings bring out the best in people."

"I have a friend who says we spend the first half of our life building it and the second half preventing it from falling apart. I’d rather be under construction when I die."

“We are all writing our own obituary every day by how we live. The best news is that there’s still time for additions and revisions before it goes to press.”

"The invisible part of a mother’s heart is the strongest and most flexible because it enlarges with each child and grandchild. Rather than divide the heart’s chambers into smaller rooms as the family grows, love multiplies them."

"No matter how many obituaries I write, I will never get used to talking to someone one day and learning that they’ve left town, and the entire planet, the next. It may not shock me the way it does others, but that doesn’t make it any easier. There is no good in missing someone so badly you can’t even hum."

BUY Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

Other Books by Heather Lende

BUY If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska
BUY Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: A True Story of Bad Breaks and Small Miracles

RECOMMENDATIONS

Listen to Nonfiction4Life podcast episode 102, Farewell: Vital End-of-Life Questions with Candid Answers from a Leading Palliative and Hospice Physician by Dr. Edward T. Creagan with Sandra Wendel.

Check out Nonfiction4Life podcast episode 172, The Parlay Effect: How Female Connection Can Change the World by Anne Devereux-Mills.

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