Chrysti the Wordsmith > Radio Scripts

An epitaph is a parting comment composed by, or in honor of, the deceased. Carved in the granite of a headstone or painted on a piece of wood, epitaphs may be tender and sentimental, as is Mark Twain's farewell for his daughter Susy: Warm summer sun, shine kindly here/Green sod above, lie light, lie light/Good night, dear heart, good night, good night.

Others may be witty and terse. Observed on a Cleveland, Ohio grave marker: Once I wasn't/then I was/now I ain't again. In a Georgia cemetery: I told you I was sick. An obvious non-believer in a Maryland graveyard left this message: Here lies an Atheist/All dressed up/and no place to go.

Julian Skaggs, who died in West Virginia in 1974, had his cremated remains interred in the family burial plot. His parting message reads: I made an ash of myself. And the good professor John Sumner had this inscription carved on his marker: An English Teacher, who could not only spell the word epitaph correctly, but also knew what it means.

Perhaps John Sumner, rest his soul, knew that epitaph is a word of Greek origin, a conjoining of the prefix epi, meaning "upon or over," and taphos, "tomb." So, etymologically, an epitaph is a sentiment poised "over the tomb."

Radio Script > Epitaph