Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die tomorrow.
–
That one important symbol is the key to explaining the life on a tombstone. It's significance explains the whole reasoning to one person's life. The dash that lives between the two dates of the earthly birthday and the departure captures their whole life story of how they lived. The dash, in fact, is the most important part and only the people closest to them know how they lived their life in that dash.
Living one's legacy is the most truest form of living your life to the fullest. It doesn't matter how successful you are or where you come from, but the people you've impacted and the one's you've helped along the way. Some don't have the option to carry on a very long dash. In fact, their dash is set short because it was their time to go before they even had a chance to live. But, it's the legacy they left behind that is remembered. The legacy that is given as a remembrance of them to those left behind.
Always go to the funeral. If not for you then for the family. "You can't come in without going out." Even in life's most inconvenient time, take the time to stop and go to the funeral. Life is short and you only live once, so make sure you live it right and go to the funeral.
The dash is the most important part in one's life. How you chose to live and serve out that time in between the dates is up to you, but if done right, the dash can be the most meaningful part to your story. Winston Churchill once said, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
