Plan Your Epitaph Day is celebrated on April 6th or November 2nd every year making it your choice of when you celebrate Plan Your Epitaph Day. It’s a time for you to face what you’ve been running away from all your life: describing yourself in a few words!
This morbid but fun holiday we know as Plan Your Epitaph Day is a pleasant way to accept the inevitable end to every human’s journey. Every culture around the world has its traditions and customs of dealing with death. All these customs are designed to help us handle the inescapable cycle of birth and mortality.
Death is a certainty and everyone who is born into this world must die one day, but what matters, in the end, is our lives and our stories. Writing an epitaph is a way to tell our story to the world. Plan Your Epitaph Day allows us to say our last words to the world we will leave behind.
Plan Your Epitaph Day is believed to be created by Lance Hardie, and Plan Your Epitaph Day came into existence in 1995. The idea behind Plan Your Epitaph Day was to give people the chance to write their epitaphs. These last few words could tell us a lot about the person who lies in the grave.
Did you know the history of epitaphs dates back to the ancient Egyptians, though these epitaphs differed in their style of delivery. The ancient Greeks used the emotive expression, written in elegiac verse, and the Ancient Romans typically detailed the facts of the deceased, which was similar to the earliest epitaphs in English Churches.
The words written on your epitaph will remain engraved in people’s minds. I wanted to let you know there have been some great epitaphs written, including the last words of Spike Milligan, “I told you I was ill,” still making you chuckle from the grave; others account for the achievements of the deceased: Ludolph Van Ceulen had the first 35 digits of Pi inscribed on his tombstone, being the first to calculate this number out to that many decimals, though this wasn’t why he died!
One should carefully consider the content of one’s epitaph, as it will stay with you for as long as your headstone survives. Your epitaph is a reflection of who you are and what you want others to know about you, so make sure it is an interesting one that people will remember for a long time.
Plan Your Epitaph Day Activities
- Take the opportunity today to visit a Cemetery near you. Read some of the inscriptions on the tombstones for inspiration to coin your epitaph. You can even search for epitaphs on the internet and read up on the famous ones to get some ideas.
- take the time today to organize a picnic in a Graveyard with like-minded friend to share ideas on what your last words would be.
- Another fun thing to do would be Grave rubbings, which can be a great way to collect epitaphs that have already been written, to help the flow of ideas.
- The last thing to do on Plan Your Epitaph Day is write your epitaph and include what best describes you. Even if you can’t get it right the first time, you will have many more opportunities to do so in the future; because inspiration can strike at anytime.
Eerie Facts About Epitaphs
- The type of stone that is used for a Gravestone can reveal wealth or Military affiliation
- Did you know a hourglass indicates time stopping for the dead? A broken Fower symbolizes a life cut short. Which I didn’t know or would have had put on Suzzane’s grave because her life was cut way to short.
- The Laudatio Turiae, an Ancient Roman epitaph with 180 lines, celebrates the virtues of an honored wife
- The American Fraternal Insurance Company would offer widows $100 and a free Gravestone if they agreed to have the company’s logo (WOW) put on their gravestone. A $100 might be nice but I don’t plan on using my Gravestone as a advertising board. Do you?
- Lambs are carved on the Gravestones of children and sometimes carved figurines of family Dogs are found atop their owners’ graves.
Why People Love Plan Your Epitaph Day
Like life, death can also be a great learning experience and death teaches us that nothing is permanent life, happiness, sorrow, pain, or joy. While writing an epitaph, you get to realize how precious life is; you realize life is meant to be lived. :ive a life that not only inspires a good epitaph but also becomes an inspiration to many.
Why People Love Plan Your Epitaph Day gives us a chance to reflect on our mortality. While we continue to live through the memories of our loved ones and our friends, an epitaph is our final message to the world, and a legacy we leave behind for those who come after us. Reflect on what you’d like to say that would make your epitaph worth reading.
Reading the epitaphs of the ones who have passed away doesn’t just offer inspiration and advice but can also be a good way to remember them. Their existence is once again acknowledged, as thoughts of them cross your mind, even if they were a stranger to you.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
