When Dave Nadelberg of Mortified used to visit his mother’s grave, he would look around at the nearby gravestones and see similar - or even the exact same - epitaphs for lots of different people. And it made him curious: who were these people, really? What were their personalities, what happened in their lives? And didn’t they deserve something more meaningful, more personal, than these bland and repetitive epitaphs? So when Dave’s father died a few years later, Dave was determined to choose better words to represent him in perpetuity.

The transcript of this episode is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/epitaph.

The second part of this pair of episodes is at theallusionist.org/precious.

Have you had to choose words to describe a person after they could speak for themselves? Have you even decided on what you want your own epitaph to be? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter @allusionistshow.

You can hear Dave on a couple of other Allusionists: Open Me part 2, about letter-writing, and Spill Your Guts, about diaries. Mortified is one of our fellow podcasts in the Radiotopia collective, and right now it’s our annual fundraiser! Thanks to donations from you listeners, Radiotopia came into being, and continues exist; with your support, we get to make our shows, keep them free for everyone to hear, and remain independent. We love that you’re willing to be involved in this operation, so if you have spare money plus any affection for this show or others in the Radiotopia family, click here to donate. Thank you!!

YOUR RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:

gyrus