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Most people imagine a tombstone as a final record of a name and two dates. But I think of it as the last sentence in the story of a life — a few words that capture what truly mattered. If I could choose my own epitaph, it would be this:
"She asked more questions than she answered."
It may sound strange, even unfinished. But that is exactly the point. I never wanted to be someone who had all the answers. The older I get, the more I realize how little I know. And instead of feeling troubled by that, I feel liberated. Curiosity has been my quiet engine — it made me listen to strangers, change my mind, admit mistakes, and stay open.
An epitaph is usually written by others to summarize a life. But I want mine to speak directly to the living. When someone stops by my grave and reads those words, I hope they don't think, "What a modest person." I hope they pause and ask themselves: What questions am I avoiding? What would I ask if I weren't afraid?
In that sense, my tombstone would not be an ending. It would be a gentle provocation — a reminder that a life well-lived is not one with neat conclusions, but one filled with honest, restless wonder. And if a dead person can still make the living think, then maybe that's a kind of immortality worth having.
