The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.

We soften people once they are gone, partly out of love and partly because the full account is harder to carry. What remains is a smooth version the living can hold, though it usually leaves out whatever made the person specific. Being remembered accurately is rarer, and in some ways kinder, than being remembered well.

If you have lost somebody, you may already know the strange relief of saying one true, unflattering thing about them and finding the love still there. Let the memory keep its edges. The person you actually knew is better company than the polished one.