In the spirit of many mothers, my own wishes that I were more of a committed churchgoer, less a dilettante of formless spirituality. She doesn’t bother me about this at all, let alone nag me, but every now and then there’s a little tap on the shoulder just to let me know it’s on her mind.

Over the last week, she gave or sent to my sisters, brother, and me one of those little daily-devotional booklets, spanning the part of the Christian calendar called Lent.

I (and my sibs) thought that today’s item was especially interesting, and I (and maybe my sibs) think so especially for writerly and word-nerd reasons. Shorn of its theological trappings, it says:

How would you summarize your life in just six words? The online magazine Smith asked readers to do just that. [JES: link] It was based on Ernest Hemingway’s response to the same question: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” The result is a book called Not Quite What I Had Planned, a collection of six-word memoirs from folks famous and unknown. A few examples:

“Well, I thought it was funny.”
“I still make coffee for two.”
“Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears.”

[…]

So if you were to try to summarize your life in six words, what would you say?

Any takers? (I’m thinking on mine.)

4:50 pm/edit to add: No one noticed (so he thought).*

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* The man does like ambiguity.