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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Alexis Dent is a freelance <keyword id="6360928" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="writer">writer</keyword> based in upstate New York whose company, <a href="https://xojuliet.com/">XO Juliet,</a> offers custom wedding vow writing services.</li><li>By mid-March, her business all but dried up as spring and summer weddings began getting canceled because of the pandemic.</li><li>Dent recognized there was a new need for eulogies to meet the rising number of funerals for people who passed away from COVID-19. </li><li>"When I get a new order, I take a moment of silence," says Dent. "Every order for the past month has been a notification that someone is gone too soon."</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>One afternoon in February, I was staring out the window, experiencing writer's block after getting off the phone with a client who'd <a href="https://xojuliet.com/">ordered wedding vows</a>. It had been a long afternoon of writing, and I needed a change of scenery so I could reinvigorate my inspiration to finish the work day strong. It's been three years since I added wedding vow writing to my conglomerate of professional writing endeavors, but that doesn't mean I've grown out of the occasional creative block.</p><p><div type="image" title="alexis dent" height="559" width="746" msid="75433479" hostid="261"></div></p><p>I decided to go for a drive. Despite it being a cold day in upstate New York, I cracked the window open — there's nothing like the fresh air to make you feel rejuvenated. It only took about 40 minutes to run my errands, and I arrived back home ready to conquer the list of orders I had to finish.</p><p>Now, 37 days into my quarantine, I look back at that impulsive errand as a blessing.</p><p>As the days passed and the month progressed, the news got more serious. By the time March arrived, it was clear that life was about to change. And by mid-March, our orders for wedding vows came to a screeching halt.</p><h2><strong>Given that I own a wedding-related business, I was aware that the industry would be hit hard. </strong></h2><p>Although I have other revenue streams besides XO Juliet — like ghostwriting memoirs and marketing consulting — I knew I had to adapt to these uncertain times. There's no telling how long it'll take for life to return to normal. (Or at least, to a new normal.) Thus, there's no telling when our industry will rebound. So while yes, I'm lucky to still have income from other industries, I take a certain pride in the business I was able to grow from quite literally nothing. Last summer's busy months alone had a strong six-figure showing that confirmed to me that the wedding industry was a great industry to be in.</p><p>And while I am notoriously averse to discussing anything morbid, as the pandemic began its rampage I knew that there was a new need to be addressed. People were losing their loved ones and had no way to verbalize their grief during this senseless time. Ever the entrepreneurial spirit, I knew that it was time to pivot. Owning a business requires flexibility and adaptation, and regardless of how much money I was bringing in elsewhere, I wasn't going to neglect my business.</p><p>And then it hit me.</p><h2>My business tagline is "We put your love on paper."</h2><p>Weddings aren't the only life event for which people need help expressing their feelings; funerals are an impactful life event as well. People pass away each and every day, and that has become exponentially more true as the COVID-19 pandemic progresses.</p><p>Before making the decision to add eulogy writing to our list of services — which we promote organically and now via Google ads — I experienced conflicting emotions. At first I felt guilt about expanding to this niche. I refuse to exploit people — especially during a traumatic and grief-ridden time.</p><p>However, I realized that, much like writing vows, writing eulogies proves difficult for many people. No matter how much you love someone, sometimes you struggle to write about them. Sometimes the words just don't flow. And when you're up there standing in front of that person's family and friends, you want to do right by them.</p><p>Two months have passed, and we haven't received a single order for wedding vows. Not one. Globally, around <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/todays-coronavirus-updates/">3 billion people are in lockdown</a> — and no one in the world is having a big wedding. Quite frankly, none of us know when that will change. I long for the day where I can write joyful, humorous, and sentimental vows again, but for now I'm writing joyful, humorous, and <a href="https://xojuliet.com/product/custom-eulogy-writing/">sentimental eulogies</a>. I've realized that writing eulogies isn't grim. Sad, sure. But not grim. Eulogies are just another one of life's opportunities to honor someone whom you love.</p><h2>Although my business is a way to sustain my livelihood, it's also my passion to share people's love stories.</h2><p>To me, sharing people's love isn't a paycheck; it's a blessing. The fact that people even trust me with something so precious and intimate is an incredible privilege. Every time I interview a client and learn about their loved one, I get to share in a tiny bit of that love as well. Much like our wedding vow process, I correspond with the client via their communication method of choice (email, telephone, or video chat). And much like our wedding vow process, I largely let them lead the way, and only chime in with questions as necessary. You know the person you love best; I'm just here to help you convey that.</p><p>The pageviews for our eulogy writing soar by 50-100 page views day-over-day, and every day corresponding orders roll in as a result. Whenever I get a new order, I take a moment of silence. Every order for the past month has been a notification that someone is gone too soon — because it's always too soon.</p><p>These days, I still stare out my window. As spring slowly blooms in my hometown, I often crack the window and listen to the birds chirp. Beyond the sweet chirping, the world largely feels still. I hear less cars. Less bass erupting from speakers. Less honking. Less sirens. Less laughter. Less movement. Life feels on pause, and the birds chirping in the trees are often my only reminder that life is still moving on out there.</p><p>As I go through my list of orders this morning and stare out of the window, I acknowledge that the world may feel still, but my pen must move on.</p><p><em><a href="http://alexisdent.com/">Alexis Dent</a> is a freelance writer, marketer, and social media strategist. Her company, <a href="https://xojuliet.com/">XO Juliet</a>, offers custom wedding vow writing services. Connect with her on <a href="https://twitter.com/alexisdent">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/alexisdent/">Instagram</a>. </em></p>Read the original article on <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/i-used-to-write-wedding-vows-now-writing-eulogy-2020-4">Business Insider</a>

I used to write wedding vows for a living, but since COVID-19, I've pivoted my business to writing eulogies

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table center"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Obit-Steve-Jobs/b65b26e791874f2bb09d1d12b1a94a7c/39/0">Jeff Chiu/AP</a></span></p><p class="caption">Steve Jobs.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivered a memorable speech in 2005 about his struggle with cancer and facing his own mortality.</li><li>Thirteen years later, business executives are trying to attain similar clarity by writing their own eulogies.</li><li>Some leadership coaches say writing your own eulogy can help you realize what kind of person you want to be and what changes you need to make.</li></ul><p>In 2005, Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivered a memorable commencement speech to graduates of Stanford University.</p><p>In the <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2005/06/14/jobs-061505/">14-minute speech</a>, Jobs detailed his battle with pancreatic cancer and explained how facing his own mortality helped him recognize what was important in life.</p><p><span>"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life," said Jobs, who succumbed to his illness in 2011. </span></p><p><span>"Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose."</span></p><p>Thirteen years after Jobs delivered that speech, business executives are finding a way to reach a similar epiphany: by writing their own eulogies. <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90266043/how-vividly-imagining-your-own-death-can-help-your-next-career-move">According to Fast Company</a>, the exercise is becoming increasingly common in the business world, both in the US and in China.</p><p>The reasoning behind the exercise is that by imagining what might be said about you at your funeral, you'll gain clarity on what kind of person you want to be and what changes you'll need to make to achieve that.</p><p>The practice dates back decades, and has been recommended by therapists, psychologists, and business coaches.</p><p>"When we take the time to write our eulogies, it creates this magnetic pull power that draws us forward," executive coach Daniel Harkavy told Fast Company. "Our priorities and our vision for where we want to be as leaders and how we'll get there come into sharp focus. This clarity enables us to make the best decisions, get up out of our comfortable patterns, create new habits, and start moving us toward a better future."</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/interview-with-obituary-writers-2015-12">Obituary writers reveal the surprising things they learn by writing about the dead</a></em></p><p>Science seems to support the benefits of the eulogy technique, too. <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120430164359.htm">A 2012 study from the University of Missouri</a> found that thinking about death can lead to positive changes in a person such as exercising, quitting smoking, and using sunscreen. It also found that thoughts of mortality "can lead to decreased militaristic attitudes, better health decisions, increased altruism and helpfulness, and reduced divorce rates."</p><p><a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0144228">Another paper from 2015</a> found that when people were reminded of death, it made them less likely to waste money in the present.</p><p>The research suggests why people stand to benefit from writing their own eulogies, and it's something Jobs alluded to in his famous speech:</p><p>"Death is very likely the single best invention of life," Jobs said. "It is life's change agent."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-when-you-drink-too-much-water-intoxication-2018-11">Drinking too much water could be surprisingly hazardous to your health</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

13 years after Steve Jobs said his mortality was a crucial tool for decision-making, people are writing their own eulogies as a career exercise

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Decades before <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/charles-darwin-signed-manuscript-natural-selection-sells-for-900k-auction-2022-12">Darwin</a>, there was a debate over transformism, the idea that species change over time.</li><li>Two colleagues at the French natural history museum were on opposite sides of issue.</li></ul><p>Throughout the early 1800s, the question of whether animals could turn into new species was hotly debated in scientific circles.</p><p>In <a target="_blank" href="https://www.rebeccastott.co.uk/darwins-ghosts"><u>1798,</u></a> Napoleon Bonaparte <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/napoleon-egypt-invasion-scientific-breakthroughs-2023-11"><u>brought a slew of savants</u> — geologists, engineers,</a> and other scientists — on his unsuccessful attempt to take over Egypt. A collection of mummified animals that the scholars brought <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/napoleon-stranded-egypt-savants-birth-modern-archaeology-science">back from Egypt</a> seemed to hold the key to the question of species transformation.</p><p>Naturalists <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/cuviers-beaked-whales-set-new-diving-record-2014-3">Georges Cuvier</a> and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, colleagues at the French Museum of Natural History, represented the two sides of the debate.</p><h2>Cuvier mocked Lamarck in his obituary</h2><p>In 1832, a mocking <a target="_blank" href="https://victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/cuvier/cuvier_on_lamarck.htm"><u>eulogy</u></a> was read before the French Academy of Sciences. The honoree, Lamarck, and the obituary’s writer, Cuvier, were both dead. </p><p>When recognizing the death of a colleague Cuvier had written, one should both commend their “useful works” while also calling attention to “more questionable” ideas that resulted from a “lively imagination.” </p><p>In this case, Cuvier was bashing Lamarck's theory of transformism. Lamarck thought that over a long period of time, the simplest animals became more complex and transformed into entirely new species. This was nonsense to Cuvier, who thought species could never change.</p><p>Naturalists Cuvier and Lamarck had first sparred three decades earlier when a mummified ibis arrived at the museum.</p><p>The ancient bird was indistinguishable from a modern one, seeming to prove Cuvier was right.</p><h2>What is transformism? </h2><p>In his elegy, Cuvier mocked Lamarck’s suggestion that a “desire” to swim creates webbed feet on an aquatic bird or <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bizarre-leggy-dinosaur-fossil-redefine-bird-evolution-fujianvenator-prodigiosus-2023-9">lengthens the leg</a> of another species that prefers not to get wet.</p><p>This was nearly 60 years before Charles Darwin published his theory of natural selection. At the time, some of the biggest questions in natural history were why animals went extinct, and new ones appeared after big gaps in the fossil record.</p><p>Lamarck is probably best known for writing that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/giraffe-manor-review-nairobi-kenya-worth-it-2024-2">giraffes</a> got their long necks by stretching for leaves and passing down that trait to their offspring. It wasn’t a completely new idea, but Lamarck was unique in saying such behavior could gradually lead to a new species. </p><p>He wrote that species were a convenient way for humans to catalog living beings. Since animals were constantly changing, a species was just a temporary category. </p><p>Cuvier, one of the founders of comparative anatomy, took a different view. Species were permanent. But he couldn’t deny that at certain intervals in the fossil record, new types of animals cropped up that never existed before. </p><div type="image" title="Black and white African sacred ibis drawings by Marie Jules Cesar Savigny" height="1500" width="2023" msid="107827918" hostid="261" sizebytes="186572"></div><p>Every so often, a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-climate-change-crisis-extreme-weather-is-costing-you-2023-9">natural catastrophe</a> led to a new "epoch,” Cuvier <a target="_blank" href="https://victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/cuvier/1.html">thought</a>. Some <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ocean-animals-that-went-extinct-species-threatened-2019-6">species went extinct</a>; some suddenly appeared. If Lamarck was right, Cuvier said, there would be all sorts of in-between fossils, halfway between one species and another. </p><h2>Geoffroy finds mummies in Egypt</h2><p>Mummified animals that were thousands of years old seemed like a perfect entrypoint to look for evidence of change between ancient animals and their descendants.</p><p>Among Napoleon's savants was <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160932707000804"><u>Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire</u></a>, a naturalist who dissected every mongoose, fox, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-scientific-importance-of-napole/"><u>crocodile</u></a>, and lungfish he could get his hands on. </p><p>The zoologist was enthusiastic about collecting animals, alive and dead. While descending <a target="_blank" href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Napoleon_s_Sorcerers/DftFDjYDyX4C?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=geoffroy+%22well+of+birds%22&amp;pg=PA56&amp;printsec=frontcover"><u>into</u></a> ruins, he saw his first <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mysterious-mummified-baboons-egypt-answers-gift-god-2023-11">mummies</a>: ancient birds stacked like wine bottles in a cellar. </p><div type="image" title="Three skeletons of two birds and a cat in a museum" height="2696" width="3671" msid="107827920" hostid="261" sizebytes="576976"></div><p>Ancient Egyptians revered many animals, including the ibis. To preserve the birds, they <a target="_blank" href="https://www.spurlock.illinois.edu/exhibits/online/mummification/materials.html"><u>treated</u></a> them with drying salts and poured oil and resin over the remains before <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/curse-tutankhamun-king-tut-pharoah-mummy-tomb-cause-fungi-2023-8">wrapping them up</a> and placing them in pots. </p><p>When Geoffroy returned from Egypt, he brought some of the wrapped ibises, cats, <a target="_blank" href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2005558"><u>jackals</u></a>, crocodiles, and other animals with him. Cuvier was eager to examine them. The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-egyptian-book-dead-buried-3-500-year-mummies-2023-10">mummification process</a> worked well enough that even some of the “<a target="_blank" href="https://arcade.stanford.edu/rofl/ibis-and-crocodile-napoleon%E2%80%99s-egyptian-campaign-and-evolutionary-theory-france-1801%E2%80%931835"><u>tiniest hairs</u></a>” were still intact. </p><p>When Cuvier compared the bones of the long-dead ibises to modern birds, they were very similar.</p><p>Lamarck agreed. But the mummies were only 3,000 years old. At the time no one knew <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/remnants-life-in-rocks-rich-ecosystem-3-billion-years-ago-2024-1">how old the planet</a> was, but a few thousand years was “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3730912/"><u>infinitely small</u></a>” in the grand scheme of the Earth, Lamarck said in a lecture to his students.</p><p>It would be odd to see a new species in just a few millennia, he <a target="_blank" href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Zoological_Philosophy/el47AAAAYAAJ?hl=en&amp;gbpv=1&amp;dq=%E2%80%9Cfor+the+position+and+climate+of+Egypt+are+still+very+nearly+what+they+were+in+those+times.%E2%80%9D&amp;pg=PA42&amp;printsec=frontcover">later wrote</a>, “for the position and climate of Egypt are still very nearly what they were in those times.” It took both time and a unique environment to lead to a new species, he thought. </p><p>Cuvier, however, felt his belief in the unchanging nature of species had been vindicated. "I have shown that it is at the present time precisely as it was in the time of the Pharaohs," he later <a target="_blank" href="https://victorianweb.org/science/science_texts/cuvier/1.html">wrote</a> of the mummified ibis. Time and climate weren't enough to significantly alter the species.</p><p>He was wrong, just as Lamarck was incorrect about the mechanics of heredity. </p><h2>Darwin’s predecessor </h2><p>The evidence from the mummies wasn’t enough to squash the <a target="_blank" href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30797669/"><u>debate</u></a> over transformism, despite Cuvier’s <a target="_blank" href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo5568091.html"><u>powerful</u></a> reputation. </p><p>With the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” in 1859, the whole debate flared to life again, this time backed by the naturalist’s wide-ranging observations and extensive research.</p><p>Over two decades after Lamarck’s death, Darwin <a target="_blank" href="https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2654.xml"><u>named</u></a> him as one of his predecessors, albeit calling his views “erroneous.” The creator of the theory of evolution by natural selection <a target="_blank" href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/darwin-s-historical-sketch-on-the-origin-of-species"><u>admitted</u></a> he was far from the first to note that “species undergo modification.”</p>

Mummified animals Napoleon's scientists brought back from Egypt sparked a pre-Darwinian debate about evolution

<ul class="summary-list"><li>When I was in graduate school, I vowed to narrate my kids' early years to them if I became a parent.</li><li>I've kept journals and wrote essays to remember everything from their childhood.</li></ul><p>When I was in graduate school and not yet a parent, part of my dissertation focused on historical novels that memorialize victims of the Holocaust. A key author I learned from was Raymond Federman. </p><p>Much of Federman's fiction is based on his horrifying experience as a 13-year-old Jewish boy saved from being taken to a Nazi concentration camp in 1942 by his mother's hiding him in a closet.</p><p>Federman listened in darkness as the Nazis led his mother, father, and two sisters away from their home in France to be killed at Auschwitz. He later immigrated to the US and became a prominent member of the American literary avant-garde for decades. </p><p>While researching Federman's work, I was struck by one of his revelations from becoming a parent. In the first years of our lives, which we do not remember, our parents are like surrogate rememberers who narrate and establish who we are via stories and photos.</p><p>Eventually, we assume the narration of such memories. But Federman realized he knew so little about his early self because his parents' stories and photos of his and their childhoods died with them in the Holocaust.</p><p>After emotionally processing these insights, I vowed that if I ever had children, I would try to narrate their early years as best I could. The result has been two decades of <a href="https://www.insider.com/guides/health/mental-health/benefits-of-journaling">keeping journals</a>, writing essays, saving artifacts, and filling countless bins with family trinkets and lore as a <a href="https://www.insider.com/i-am-a-stay-at-home-dad-have-best-job-2022-6">stay-at-home</a>, and later a <a href="https://www.insider.com/theres-no-more-sympathy-for-working-parents-with-quarantined-kids-2022-1">working, dad</a> of two daughters.</p><p>Granted, I might have become a memory hoarder even without Federman's words, but I have no doubt his sentiment has anchored my parenthood.</p><h2>It's not just with children</h2><p>Over the years, I have realized a parenting inversion: Just as we narrate our children's lives when they're quite young, our children eventually narrate our lives when we're quite old — whether in the form of a eulogy after our death or in the form of memory keeping if we succumb to illness late in life.</p><p>I had the misfortune of realizing this during my mother's battle with Alzheimer's before her death. </p><p>In the early stages of the disease, my mother was still in control of her faculties, though her condition had started to show itself in various indirect ways.</p><p>She was divorced and lived alone in a different state, so we would talk by phone often. In our conversations, she sometimes struggled for the right memory or word, which was especially noticeable because she had always been an astute historian and wordsmith.</p><p>In one of our conversations, I mentioned that my wife and I had ridden a tandem bike at a nearby cottage. My mother immediately replied, "Oh, I remember riding a tandem bike — oh, there it goes. I guess I don't remember that anymore, either."</p><p>At that moment, I wish I had been a better, more thorough narrator of my parents' lives.</p><h2>My parents' stories will die with them</h2><p>While I had listened to and jotted down many of my parents' stories about their identities, incidents like this reminded me that the bulk of their stories would die with them. But it also prompted me to pursue more of our family history, if only for posterity's sake, and to appreciate how much I already knew. If I could not be an omniscient narrator of my parents' lives, at least I could strive to be a more reliable one.</p><p>When I ended the call, the image of a tandem bike struck me as a powerful metaphor for parenting. On a tandem bike, both riders pedal, but only the person in front steers the bike. The person in the back is utterly dependent on the person in front to direct them.</p><p>Metaphorically, a parent begins as the rider in front, steering — and narrating — the child's life for him or her. Near the end of a parent's life, though, the two parties often switch places, with the child steering (and narrating) the parent's life.</p><p>They say you can never forget how to ride a bike, but you can. My mother had probably forgotten not only how to ride a tandem bike but also whether she had ever ridden one in the first place.</p><p>In those final disease-laden years of her life, I was thankful to be in a position to narrate for her that, yes, even though she did not remember it, she did, in fact, once ride a tandem bike.</p><p><em>Vincent O'Keefe is a writer and former stay-at-home father with a Ph.D. in American literature. Visit him at <a href="https://vincentokeefe.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VincentOKeefe.com</a> or on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/vincentaokeefe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@VincentAOKeefe</a> or Facebook at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/vincentokeefephd" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vincent O'Keefe</a>.</em></p>

I was the memory keeper for my kids when they were little. Now I'm doing the same for my aging parents.

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="99719" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Joe-Biden">Joe Biden</keyword> will begin leading the US on Wednesday amid a pandemic, an opioid crisis, and massive political instability.</li><li>The president-elect presents himself as a conventional leader with a moderate stance toward policy.</li><li>Yet deep grief, empathy, adversity, and controversy have all informed his <keyword id="34454" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="leadership">leadership</keyword>.</li></ul><p>On a rainy day in 2015, David Kessler was driving in Los Angeles when he got a call from a number he didn't recognize. "We have the vice president on the line," a voice informed him.</p><p><em>Vice President Joe Biden? </em>Kessler thought.</p><p>He immediately pulled over.</p><p>As he drove onto the shoulder, another voice came booming through the phone: "Hi, David! It's Joe! How are you?"</p><p>There was a camaraderie in his tone, Kessler would later recall, as if the two had known each other for years, despite having never met.</p><p>Kessler is one of the world's foremost authorities on grief, and he's published five books on death and bereavement, including "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Meaning-Sixth-Stage-Grief/dp/1501192744/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=finding+meaning&amp;qid=1610568218&amp;sr=8-18&amp;sr=8-1">Finding Meaning</a>." The vice president had been particularly affected by Kessler's work on finding meaning after loss. As Kessler recalled, Biden felt obligated to abide by his mother's advice: When you appreciate someone or their work, you thank them.</p><p>A few months earlier, Biden had lost his older son, Beau, the former attorney general of Delaware, to brain cancer. He was 46 years old. It was Biden's third deep wound from grief. In 1972, Biden's wife, Neilia Hunter, and their baby daughter, Naomi, died in a car accident while out Christmas shopping. Biden, then a senator-elect, was 30.</p><p>Kessler listened to the 72-year-old vice president describe his own role as grief counselor - someone who helps others through their grief - and how that has helped him find meaning.</p><p>"He is not afraid to connect with the pain," Kessler told Insider.</p><p>But things had been getting harder recently, Biden said. Just a few months after Beau died, he went to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/biden-suffering-in-his-own-grief-visits-church-where-nine-people-were-killed/2015/06/28/18599a04-1dc3-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html">Charleston</a>, South Carolina, to comfort survivors and loved ones of the nine Black churchgoers killed in the Emanuel AME Church shooting. The decision followed the dozens of eulogies he'd given for family friends and public figures over the years - a habit that's earned Biden a reputation of being one of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/us/politics/joe-biden-funeral-speech.html">best eulogizers</a> on Capitol Hill.</p><p>"He talked about how being in deep grief, it's even harder to show up," Kessler recalled. "But he was undaunted, and it would never have entered his mind not to do it. I think empathy is his secret power."</p><p>Biden checks a lot of boxes as your typical politician. The 78-year-old has a receding hairline, marked crow's-feet, white skin, and whiter hair. He stands at 6 feet and flashes a bright toothy smile. Politically, he's viewed as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/22/how-joe-biden-is-holding-his-image-moderate/">moderate</a> Democrat.</p><p>But a closer look into the life of the president-elect reveals a man deeply shaped by sadness, comfortable with vulnerability, and in possession of a unique ability to connect with others. And yet, over his nearly five decades in <keyword id="6358883" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="politics">politics</keyword>, he's faced controversy, scandals, and gaffes, some of which have led to national discussions over Biden's fit for certain offices.</p><p>Insider spoke with several former colleagues of Biden, including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and official White House photographer David Lienemann, in addition to leadership experts like the "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Grit-Passion-Perseverance-Angela-Duckworth/dp/1501111108">Grit</a>" author and psychologist Angela Duckworth and the writer Evan Osnos, to get a close-up look at what they say are the strengths and weaknesses of America's new leader.</p><p>What emerges is a complex portrait of an imperfect leader.</p><h2><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/meet-joe-biden-leadership-profile-grief-empathy-controversy-2020-12">Subscribe to Insider to read the full story.</a></h2>

PRESENTING: Meet Joe Biden, America's imperfect leader

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning. Here's everything you need to know in the world of <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> today.</p><p><strong>1. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-trade-desk-files-for-ipo-2016-8">Ad tech company The Trade Desk has filed to go public.</a></strong> The company is looking to raise $86.3 million in its initial public offering.</p><p><strong>2. <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/medianet-acquisition-chinese-ad-tech-arbitrage-play-2016-8?r=US&amp;IR=T">Here's why Chinese firms keep paying big bucks for western ad tech companies.</a></strong> One reason is that Chinese firms have lots of financial leverage - thanks to an influx of private investors in their stock - which can help them perform an interesting arbitrage play once they buy an undervalued ad tech firm.</p><p><strong>3. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-22/yahoo-ad-partner-media-net-sells-to-china-group-for-900-million">Dubai-based ad tech company Media.net has been acquired by a group of Chinese investors for about $900 million in cash, Bloomberg reported</a>.</strong><span> The Chinese consortium plans to sell </span><span>Media.net</span><span> - which provides the technology that serves contextual ads on Yahoo and Bing - to a telecoms company called Miteno whose shares have been suspended from trading since last year, according to the report.</span></p><p><strong>4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/speedo-ends-ryan-lochte-sponsorship-2016-8">All of Ryan Lochte's sponsors have dropped him.</a> </strong>The US swimmer admitted on Saturday he "overexaggerated" a story about being robbed at gunpoint at a gas station in Rio during the Olympics.</p><p><strong>5. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-facebook-can-climb-more-than-20-percent-on-ad-growth-barrons-2016-8">Barron's says Facebook's stock could soar another 20% this year.</a> </strong>The company has seen a recent acceleration in growth, partly due to increasing its ad load on mobile.</p><p><strong>6. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-shared-olympics-ads-of-all-time-2016-8/#3-pg--pick-them-back-up-8">These are the 10 most-shared Olympics ads of all time, according to video ad tech company Unruly.</a></strong> P&amp;G, Channel 4, and Under Armour all feature.</p><p><strong>7. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gawkercom-closes-final-story-hulk-hogan-peter-thiel-nick-denton-2016-8">Gawker.com has officially closed.</a></strong> The site's writers spent Monday writing eulogies to the controversial gossip blog, with the final post published by founder Nick Denton.</p><p><strong>8. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/andrea-tantaros-lawsuit-against-fox-news-sexual-harassment-2016-8">Former Fox News presenter Andrea Tantaros has filed a lawsuit against her formal employer.</a> </strong>The suit describes Fox News as a "sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult" and accuses the network of punishing her for complaining about sexual harassment tby former chief executive Roger Ailes.</p><p><strong>9. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-planning-music-streaming-service-for-echo-2016-8">Amazon is planning a cheaper music streaming service that only works with Echo.</a></strong> It will cost $4 or $5 a month and could launch as soon as September, according to a report from Recode.</p><p><strong>10. <a href="http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/marks-spencer-moves-ad-account-grey-london/1406384">Grey London has won the £60 million ($79 million) creative account, Campaign reports.</a></strong> It ends a 16-year relationship with Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&amp;R.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-guidelines-changes-uniforms-advertisements-rio-olympics-2016-8">New guidelines have led to a big change for uniforms at the Rio Olympics</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="lneHZkNTE69r7QTb3lQXo3ADb2YvYxf4" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The 10 things in advertising you need to know today

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot via YouTube/Lloyd Christmas</span></p><p class="caption">No thanks.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The Business Insider <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="transportation">Transportation</keyword> team has checked out a few stations wagons recently, and our reaction has been utterly predictable.</p><p>I know, you think I'm going to say that we loved them to pieces at that we lament the decline of the wagon as a vehicle choice in the US, supplanted by the wicked, gas-guzzling SUV.</p><p>I'm not going to say that. We thought the wagons were okay, but limited.</p><p>And that, in a nutshell, it why the wagon market has collapsed in America. Sure, you can still buy or lease a few examples, notably the Subaru Outback, which has performed both stalwart and near-romantic duty in keeping the wagon alive as an automotive genre in the USA. Otherwise, you're looking at something like a BMW Sport, and Audi All Road, a Mercedes E-Class wagon, or the Volvo V60 - all European luxury models with a luxe price tag - or something like a VW Golf SportWagon, a cheaper vehicle we tried out but weren't terribly impressed by.</p><p>The rest of the haggard wagon market is made up of choices that are really more wagon-adjacent - not proper wagons, but crossovers that have been adapted to the cause, or offbeat players on the segment, such as the MINI Clubman.</p><p>The bottom line is that Ford isn't going to sell you a proper wagon, nor is General Motors. The mass-market guys have bailed.</p><p>But why?</p><h2>Family rebellion</h2><p>Simple: wagons don't serve their primary market any longer. That market is families. The decision used to be fundamental. You had some kids, you got a wagon, particularly if you wanted to buck the SUV trend. I did this, in the mid-2000s, with a Volvo V40. </p><p>It was a nifty car, a peppy ride (as many Euro-ish wagons are) thanks to its turbocharged engined and sharp handling, and a reasonable family hauler.</p><p>Until it wasn't. </p><p>The thing about kids is that they get bigger. And they have more stuff. And they make friends. Sometimes you have more than two.</p><p>A wagon can't handle any of this. The Volvo V60 Polestar we tested recently was a dandy set of wheels, but putting my 13-, 10-, and 6-year-old in there, plus my wife, plus me, wasn't going to happen. (The larger V90 wagon, for model year 2017, suggests that Volvo intends to double-down on its wagon strategy.) A friend if the family? I don't think they make a roof rack for that. A pet? Not unless he wanted to end up like Dinky, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT5g1n8Tv8">tied to the bumper of the Griswolds' Family Truckster</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Hollis Johnson</span></p><p class="caption">The Volvo V60.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>What can handle all this is a minivan, but the stigma is often too great, despite the extreme versatility and tremendous safety of the two main options, the Honda Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna (the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country have been surpassed by their Japanese rivals, despite Chrysler inventing the genre; the T&amp;C is also now out of production). I owned an Odyssey for about four years, and it was basically ideal. But it was also a <em>minivan. </em>We loved it. But a lot of buyers can't overcome the soccer-mom image. </p><h2>The SUVs cometh</h2><p>Enter the SUVs and the crossovers. And in particular, the seven-passenger models. A wagon simply can't compete against a roomy crossover with three rows of seats. And for the smaller clans that might once have reflexively chosen the wagon, the versions with only a second row now dominate. Compact SUVs and crossovers are the hottest segment in the US auto market at the moment. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/BI</span></p><p class="caption">If you put the seat down, it can hold an ironing board.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>This leaves the wagons with perhaps the most narrowcasted demographic in the entire auto industry, made up of practical unwed hipsters, young childless couples, and car writers, who have always been BIG on the wagon thing because they lack other more obscure choices, such as updated El Caminos or a Subaru Baja.</p><p>The bottom line is that it makes sense that the wagon died. It was, in essence, an expanded sedan - an evolution of the family car of the 1950s and '60. If you started from scratch and considered what most families need their cars for, you wouldn't do a wagon - you'd take a pickup truck, ditch the bed, and add a few extra rows of seats, and cover the whole affair with sheet metal. Presto! SUV! Or you'd create the minivan. But then you'd be asking families to buy a small bus. Which worked for a while, until it didn't.</p><p>You know where this leads: extinction. In a decade, there probably won't be any wagons to buy. Maybe Subaru will stick with it. But we might as well start the eulogy now. So long, wagons! We were lucky to enjoy your twilight years.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/watch-time-lapse-supermoon-november-london-hong-kong-new-york-2016-11">Watch a time-lapse of last night's stunning supermoon</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="J5cTJsNzE6ThHj9Qvfbw3ds9ccP_0ERG" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Americans don't like station wagons - here's why

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot via YouTube/Lloyd Christmas</span></p><p class="caption">No thanks.</p></div><p></p></div></div>The Business Insider <keyword id="34991" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="transportation">Transportation</keyword> team has checked out a few stations wagons recently, and our reaction has been utterly predictable.</p><p>I know, you think I'm going to say that we loved them to pieces at that we lament the decline of the wagon as a vehicle choice in the US, supplanted by the wicked, gas-guzzling SUV.</p><p>I'm not going to say that. We thought the wagons were okay, but limited.</p><p>And that, in a nutshell, it why the wagon market has collapsed in America. Sure, you can still buy or lease a few examples, notably the Subaru Outback, which has performed both stalwart and near-romantic duty in keeping the wagon alive as an automotive genre in the USA. Otherwise, you're looking at something like a BMW Sport, and Audi All Road, a Mercedes E-Class wagon, or the Volvo V60 - all European luxury models with a luxe price tag - or something like a VW Golf SportWagon, a cheaper vehicle we tried out but weren't terribly impressed by.</p><p>The rest of the haggard wagon market is made up of choices that are really more wagon-adjacent - not proper wagons, but crossovers that have been adapted to the cause, or offbeat players on the segment, such as the MINI Clubman.</p><p>The bottom line is that Ford isn't going to sell you a proper wagon, nor is General Motors. The mass-market guys have bailed.</p><p>But why?</p><h2>Family rebellion</h2><p>Simple: wagons don't serve their primary market any longer. That market is families. The decision used to be fundamental. You had some kids, you got a wagon, particularly if you wanted to buck the SUV trend. I did this, in the mid-2000s, with a Volvo V40. </p><p>It was a nifty car, a peppy ride (as many Euro-ish wagons are) thanks to its turbocharged engined and sharp handling, and a reasonable family hauler.</p><p>Until it wasn't. </p><p>The thing about kids is that they get bigger. And they have more stuff. And they make friends. Sometimes you have more than two.</p><p>A wagon can't handle any of this. The Volvo V60 Polestar we tested recently was a dandy set of wheels, but putting my 13-, 10-, and 6-year-old in there, plus my wife, plus me, wasn't going to happen. A friend if the family? I don't think they make a roof rack for that. A pet? Not unless he wanted to end up like Dinky, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT5g1n8Tv8">tied to the bumper of the Griswolds' Family Truckster</a>.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Hollis Johnson</span></p><p class="caption">The Volvo V60.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>What can handle all this is a minivan, but the stigma is often too great, despite the extreme versatility and tremendous safety of the two main options, the Honda Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna (the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country have been surpassed by their Japanese rivals, despite Chrysler inventing the genre; the T&amp;C is also now out of production). I owned an Odyssey for about four years, and it was basically ideal. But it was also a <em>minivan. </em>We loved it. But a lot of buyers can't overcome the soccer-mom image. </p><h2>The SUVs cometh</h2><p>Enter the SUVs and the crossovers. And in particular, the seven-passenger models. A wagon simply can't compete against a roomy crossover with three rows of seats. And for the smaller clans that might once have reflexively chosen the wagon, the versions with only a second row now dominate. Compact SUVs and crossovers are the hottest segment in the US auto market at the moment. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matthew DeBord/BI</span></p><p class="caption">If you out the seat down, it can hold an ironing board.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>This leaves the wagons with perhaps the most narrowcasted demographic in the entire auto industry, made up of practical unwed hipsters, young childless couples, and car writers, who have always been BIG on the wagon thing because they lack other more obscure choices, such as updated El Caminos or a Subaru Baja.</p><p>The bottom line is that it makes sense that the wagon died. It was, in essence, an expanded sedan - an evolution of the family car of the 1950s and '60. If you started from scratch and considered what most families need their cars for, you wouldn't do a wagon - you'd take a pickup truck, ditch the bed, and add a few extra rows of seats, and cover the whole affair with sheet metal. Presto! SUV! Or you'd create the minivan. But then you'd be asking families to buy a small bus. Which worked for a while, until it didn't.</p><p>You know where this leads: extinction. In a decade, there probably won't be any wagons to buy. Maybe Subaru will stick with it. But we might as well start the eulogy now. So long, wagons! We were lucky to enjoy your twilight years.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-just-unveiled-teslas-top-secret-master-plan-2016-7">Elon Musk just unveiled Tesla's 'top secret' master plan - here are the details</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="BoaTJ2NDE6ewk6Pt7Z8Wx9cnV6tg1bcp" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

You Searched For "eulogy writer" and got 8 results

I used to write wedding vows for a living, but since COVID-19, I've pivoted my business to writing eulogies

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13 years after Steve Jobs said his mortality was a crucial tool for decision-making, people are writing their own eulogies as a career exercise

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Mummified animals Napoleon's scientists brought back from Egypt sparked a pre-Darwinian debate about evolution

Jenny McGrath

I was the memory keeper for my kids when they were little. Now I'm doing the same for my aging parents.

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PRESENTING: Meet Joe Biden, America's imperfect leader

Marguerite Ward,May Teng

The 10 things in advertising you need to know today

Lara O'Reilly

Americans don't like station wagons - here's why

Matthew DeBord

There's a simple reason why Americans hate station wagons

Matthew DeBord

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