TRUTH: there was no intro last week because I wrote an obituary instead.We lost my father in-law last week -- the first of our parents to pass away. His health had been in a slow decline and he was 84, so while my wife and her family knew it was possible, I don't think they (or anyone for that matter) were fully prepared for the suddenness and finality that goes along with receiving the news.Among the arrangements that needed to be made was composing his obituary. My wife is a very talented writer, having once had a small following of her own as a "mom blogger" in the mid 2000s. This was during the era of "Sex and the City" so her posts were funny (and often playfully risque), and the ups and downs of our married life in the suburbs with then-small-kids was the common fodder. While my father in-law certainly would have fell ill many years sooner had he ever read the words that his innocent little girl typed for the blogosphere's pleasure, she was the natural point person to complete the task of writing his tribute.Except she couldn't. She struggled to put together thoughts into sentences that were "good enough." Ask her to write about the unique, comical challenges that go along with orchestrating a mid afternoon quickie with 3 children playing in the next room, no problem. But giving her 600-800 words to aptly summarize the 84 years of one of the closest, most meaningful people to her just 24 hours after his passing? Insurmountable.With a local newspaper print submission deadline rapidly approaching (and her emotions already at Space Mountain proportions), I offered to write a first pass for her to edit. I figured I have spent a career crafting stories and narratives for complex products and dysfunctional companies -- how hard could it be to do it for someone that was close to me who was neither complex nor dysfunctional (far from it)? There's a reason they will assign young journalists to celebrity obit duty when they arrive at newspapers: writing a good one is (pardon my language) f---ing hard. After all, you are trying to honor the true essence of someone's "dash" -- the hyphen that represents the period of time between their date of birth and their final expiration. There is a tricky combination of reporting of facts and storytelling that goes into it. And while a little hyperbole is acceptable, going too far can make it seem less authentic and contrived.So I used the time I normally reserve for writing this preamble to help my wife honor her father and the truly wonderful things he did with his dash. The process was cathartic for both of us, and it is maybe weird to say, but I actually enjoyed doing it -- the fond recollections, the writing challenge, the battle to maintain an authentic view of a remarkable but still flawed human being. With the aid of a few creative sentences and a glass of chardonnay, my wife was able to take my first draft and make it her own. And through this process of describing my father in-law's many accomplishments and fine attributes, I learned something valuable: while he may not have been the most professionally successful or wealthy person I know, he was grateful for his dash every single day that I knew him. He never took his life for granted.I guess that might be the best way to essentially help write our own obituaries while we are living -- we should try to be grateful for everything that life sends our way. The good, the bad, the ugly, the struggles and the victories. These are the things that shape us between the day that we are born and the day that we leave the Earth. And in the end, the ways in which we went about handling it all is the ultimate legacy we leave for loved ones to honor when we are gone. Thanks for indulging me here, Friends. It's been a long week and a half. Didn't have much time to search for gems this week, but some good links still nonetheless. Have a good weekend and, for those who do this sort of thing, may your March Madness brackets remain not busted by Sunday night.XOXODave