Carving on Hearts, Not Tombstones

By: A.E. Howland
Aug 29, 2025

I was reading Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and there is a challenge that hit me hard:

“Write a story that will one day be read at your funeral.”

 It wasn’t about morbidity. It wasn’t about vanity. It was about perspective. To hold life up against its end, and in the mirror, see what truly matters.

That challenge has stayed with me ever since, echoing quietly in the background of my days. And recently, as I stumbled upon a reminder by rereading Shannon L. Alder’s words, it all came back:

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.”

That is the line which propelled me in my attempt to take on this challenge posed by Covey. A single line that once unlocked something in me. Which drove me to accept this challenge, to sit down, to write – never intending to share, not thinking of legacy or publication – but simply back then as a personal exercise in growth. And yet, as I reread this, and begin to type today, something still pours out of me, so raw, so luminous, that the tears I still find streaming down my face contain within them.

What began as a private type of meditation became something much larger. What I intended for myself and now as I revisit this all…well, it began to feel like something meant for all of us – everyone. And so I clean it up and I share it with you, here, reading it right now – not as a eulogy, not as an obituary, not as a tribute, but as a love letter, a philosophical testament, a story that sprouted from a challenge from a book, yet one that truly turned into something written for my children, but resonates, I think, for every human heart.

Here is what poured through me a few years back, around COVID, when the world felt fragile and uncertain, and yet, an inner compass subconsciously pointing fiercely towards love and light:

After I'm Gone - To My Children

To the two luminous souls I was entrusted to shepherd into this world - my children, my mirrors, my eternal companions of the heart.

From the first moment I beheld you, I understood something the wisest philosophers could only point toward: the existence of innate love. A love not earned, not built, not bargained for. A love not needing nurturing or effort. A love that does not bend under the weight of conditions or expectations. A love that simply is - whole, effortless, unbreakable, eternal. You are the only ones in existence who unveiled it to me. You taught me what no scripture nor sermon nor book nor expert nor any other person could: that there is a form of love that requires nothing but breath to exist. And in you, that breath became my north star.

Life has carried me through peaks that gleamed with triumph and valleys that drowned me in shadow. I stumbled and rose, struggled and stretched, wore masks when survival demanded them, played roles when the world required theater, even donned the cloak of adversary when conflict demanded its actor. Yet behind it all, behind my eyes, in the hidden chamber you and maybe only you, glimpsed at rare and tender moments, in hidden place - dwelt the real me: fragile and strong, weary and purposeful, empathic and stoic, laughing and weeping all at once. That was the man you called Dad.

I did not live for monuments or for my name to be carved in stone. I did not strive for wealth, though I dreamed of leaving you the comfort of security. I did not hunger for fame, though I wished to be a voice others leaned in to hear. My pursuit was of something greater and more elusive: Impact.

Positive Impact - not as conquest, but as maybe communion. A spark, passed hand to hand, heart to heart, igniting light in places I would never see, in people I would never meet. My dream, my purpose, my intent was to shift the world, however slightly, toward a place where humanity awakens to itself…finally - not as fractured tribes, not as strangers, not as him or her, not as them or us, but as one species, children of the same Source, keepers of the same fragile planet, woven of the same threads of love and light.

So, when the time comes that my energy unshackles from the prison of skin and I step into the mystery of the next horizon, hear me, my beloved children:

PLEASE - Do not carve my name upon a tombstone, for stone is too silent, too final, too cold. Do not lay me in a box, do not drape me in ritual. The body is not me before you - it was only the vessel that carried me to you. Let the earth reclaim it, as all dust must return to dust. If you must honor me, honor not the husk I leave behind, but rather the sparks I sought to scatter upon the hearts of others.

PLEASE - Do not write my story, nor allow anyone else to. Rather listen instead to the stories whispered by others. If they speak of me with warmth, if they tell of some small light I placed in their path, then know I lived rightly. If their lives bend even one degree toward love or toward truth because of something I did or said, then my legacy is already carved…carved deep into the fabric of their being.

PLEASE - And you, my beloveds, my eternal companions - you are not simply my impact, you are my essence. You are my living poems. My spiritual prayers made flesh. The embodiment of all my wonder, my curiosity, and my awe. You are the reason I believed, the reason I endured, the reason I reached for more.

PLEASE - Know this: I loved you beyond any words, beyond any sound, beyond the entire known and unknown spectrum of color or the vibration of strings. You are the infinite echo of my heart. From now on, when you hear laughter that makes the sky feel lighter, I am there. When you feel sudden warmth in the coldest night, I am there. When you love freely, without condition, you are touching the same Source from which I loved you, and from which all love springs.

PLEASE - Carry me not in mourning, but in wonder. Carry me not in sorrow, but in light. Carry me as the reminder that your own sparks are needed – for if I did it right, then for you, too, will carve your names not in stone, but in the living hearts of those who you “Impact”.

This is the legacy I leave: not a monument of marble, but a resonance of love. Etched not in epitaphs, but in you, and in all who were kindled by the sparks we set free together.

Forever and beyond,
Dad
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When I finished writing those words back then, I sat in silence. Tears of joy, not sorrow, ran down my cheeks. Because I realized: the point of this exercise is not about death at all. It’s about life. It’s about naming what matters most now - and choosing to live in alignment with it before time slips away.

And as I read this now, and type my new thoughts, I never wanted my story to be one of money (not really), or fame, or hollow monuments. What I wanted - and what I still want - is to leave behind sparks of love and light that ripple outward, long after my name is forgotten. So, I open up now here, a personal part of me and share with each of you. Let it be your invitation too. Sit down and write your story now. Don’t wait for someone else to write it later. And may your story, like mine hopefully, be etched not on stone, but on the living hearts of those you touch.

Crap - even now as I type this final part - It still tears me up, every time. I hope that it sparks something in you too, and those you share it with…something that spreads, through light and love, to cover us all, every where.