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It's a problem that folks are first hearing of parents or siblings dying by seeing it on Facebook. It is a little thoughtless to race to Facebook to post such bad news before the family is notified. I know of a couple cases where that has happened.
Totally agree. A friend of mine found out about the death of her 18 yr old son on Facebook. I don't know as she's spoken to the poster since.
As for obits, of course they're going to be all roses and rainbows. what are looking for: Joe was a real jerk. Spent money like he had it, got fired from every job he had. Died like he lived: drunk as a skunk.
In my case, we've never had a permanent home, and probably never will. No point to an Obit. But yes, those Obits turn my stomach. But what I also can't stand is the ones that go on about every little thing they did.
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As for obits, of course they're going to be all roses and rainbows. what are looking for: Joe was a real jerk. Spent money like he had it, got fired from every job he had. Died like he lived: drunk as a skunk.
Agreed that would be over-the-top. But there is some middle ground between your brutal example and the twisting of reality that sometimes goes on. Here's an example from real life:
I have a male cousin who died at age 47. He was, unfortunately, a real loser who lived off the largesse of his parents and showed no desire to get a job. At one point his father had purchased saw and knife sharpening equipment for him and set him up in a little shop. But the ungrateful son refused to man the shop and so the business was quickly run into the ground through his unwillingness. It fell to his older sister to write the obituary. I was astounded to read "Retired small business owner". Wow! That's really some creative writing!
In my opinion that phrase should have been simply left out. There was no need to mention a career choice, or a trade, or a profession, because there never was one. It could have been left unsaid that he was a loser and a neer-do-well, i.e., nothing at all said one way or the other. What was said amounted to a lie, actually, even if it was correct on the narrowest technical ground.
I do like to read obits, and I do so online in my local newspaper. I want to see who's passed away whom I may know, and I enjoy reading many of the stories of people's lives even if they were exaggerated by family members or themselves. (I actually had to write some obits as a rookie reporter for a Midwest paper, and these were cut and dried and terribly boring and bound by convention.)
As an artistic narcissist, of course I've written my own obit making sure I included the interesting highlights of my creative life (and used good grammar and punctuation). I would never leave it to family members or anyone else to write my final story. Part of this is bragging, no doubt, but then again (because of my privacy tendency) no one in my family—siblings, kids—other than DH knows much about me outside the roles of mom and grandma. It's my way of letting them know that I did accomplish some small "great things" and perhaps they can remember me more that way than for my faults.
I've not only written my obit, I've put it on two CDs for the local newspapers. I've taped these to the cover of my "final instructions" notebook with a line that says "no matter what it costs...publish in full".....LOL!!
I do not want one but I remember with my brother, who was blind & ran the coffee shop at the government center, the folks who wondered what was happening with him were grateful to learn of the funeral arrangements & just to know what happened (heart attack). Saw him every day, knew him enough to say hi to, respected him enough to want to pay final respects.
Could flowery obits be connected to the admonition to not "speak ill of the dead"?
I've been researching, in vain, the origins of this warning. Its amazingly old and widespread through many cultures and religions.
Our local radio station publishes obits online. I read them every few monthes. I live now near where I attended high school and my classmates are dropping like flys.
When I lived and worked in the city, I read the obits because they were interesting. I was always surprised at the number of people that I had a connection to or knew something about.
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There is a reasonable middle ground.
