We are trying to do our ‘due diligence’ concerning our end days – the things my mother often referred to as her “dying plans.”  Hers usually involved tidying up her bureau drawers if she was going on a trip.  Ours veer more toward Advanced Directives and other scary documents.  And also, our gravestones.

We have friends, alive and well and younger than we are, who have already placed their tombstone in the cemetery, complete except for death dates.  I think it’s a great idea – saves a lot of angst for the next generation and, if being memorialized at the cemetery is important to you – it is to me; Nyel not so much – then you are assured that it is a done deal.

Larry Weathers Drawing

However, I’ve been dragging my feet because I’m not sure how to account for my various names.  I want to include Medora as my middle name because of the family connection.  Ditto my maiden name, Little.  Then there’s Howell that will make the connection with my son, Charles Howell.  Also, I need to include LaRue, the name by which I was known for almost 20 years and under which I wrote my first published books.  Plus, if my step-daughter Marta LaRue decides to make the Oysterville Cemetery her final resting place, that connection will be clear.  So far, a neat and tidy solution to all that name placement hasn’t manifested itself.

While I’ve been wrestling with my many former names, I’ve also been running into name/password problems related to my new computer.  I feel like I have a dozen aliases and suddenly don’t know which to use where.  I’ve been getting “Locked Out” a lot.  Many people tell me that they use the same password for everything so they can remember it and personal privacy be damned.  They are of the opinion that there isn’t such a thing anymore, anyway.  I tend to agree.

Certainly, after I’m dead and gone, the question of my privacy will be moot.  Maybe I should include all those computer aliases on my grave marker, too.  After all, someone somewhere identifies me as a series of alphanumeric characters (at least one capital letter, don’t forget)…  What do all those spies do?  Do their aliases die with them?  Seems a shame.