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There are many which read "she/he would light up a room whenever they walked in", or something akin to that....if so apparently my husband and I will live forever.
I often read the obits from the town in which I worked and lived for the first 47 years of my life. As I age, my friends and coworkers are dying and I don't know about it 'til I read it in the town's obit section.
Sometimes I shake my head. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I ask, "who wrote this crap, anyway?" Is there a reason for ridiculous obits? Does it make the writer feel better? Share some of the odd ones you've read. Some of my favorites are:
She died unexpectedly. She was born in 1920. How unexpected could it be?
He experienced a catastrophic cardiac event. Spit it out: He had a heart attack.
The angels rejoiced as she slipped silently and gloriously into the arms of her waiting Jesus, Savior of her soul. That's nice.
The community from whence I came is a somewhat religious community so it's not unusual to see wordy and breathy goodbye notices as the deceased slips the surly bonds of earth or shuffles off this mortal coil. I'll admit some of them are hilarious, though not necessarily intended to make the reader laugh.
I won't have an obit or death notice. If I were to have one, it would simply read, "Adios, Mother*******."
What would you want your obit to say? What are some odd ones you've seen? Please share. I need a good laugh.
Mine will say..
By the expression on her face.... looks like she didn't see that comin.
WRM20 died peacefully and suddenly. Sadly, the other 3 people in his car died screaming in terror.
My Mom has told me that her obituary better say "died", and not "left this mortal coil", or "expired" or any other euphemism, or I will be haunted for eternity.
Reminded me of an old joke, possibly from Garrison Keillor era:
The widow walked into the local newspaper office to submit an obituary for her husband. She had no idea what to write as she had little to say about him and didn't want to spend much. The editor made suggestions, including writing about what his interests were. She finally decided on:
Olaf died. Boat for sale.
More accurate than you might think.
My DS/DD has a marina. It is not unusual for the widow to put her deceased husband's boat for sale. In fact there was a motorboat in the marina where the owner's bank trustee paid moorage for years after he was in a long term care facility - it was on automatic bill pay.
My late brother-in-law had all the usual "beloved husband of..." and that's when I truly realized what BS it was, as my sister was ready to leave him. In fact, when I went to visit, she said, "He sat up and he said my name and then he died!" and I said, "At least he said YOUR name." She went crazy with laughter. I knew who I was dealing with.
I do think the New York Times started a wonderful trend with its "Portraits of Grief" obits after 9/11. Genuinely interesting bits of info about the real person. Of course, as one friend of mine said, "How come everyone that died was the light of everyone's life, a wonderful person, beloved? Couldn't they say at least once, 'He was an SOB but he didn't deserve to go that way.'"
Psychology of using euphemisms is the real topic here. And the answer is that people can't handle the truth; to some degree or another that is true of all of us. Maybe that is the one truth we can handle--that we can't handle truth.
The ones that really get me are the ones that would fill a full typewritten page, single-spaced. They list everything that person had ever done in life - was on the committee for town beautification; volunteered at the local senior center; lifelong member of Grace Church; trustee of the local school for the deaf. You get the idea.
This goes on for paragraph after paragraph. It makes me feel like such an unaccomplished person! Makes me want to run out and join something, volunteer for something.
Oh wait - that person was just a housewife, not a society matron!
The ones that really get me are the ones that would fill a full typewritten page, single-spaced. They list everything that person had ever done in life - was on the committee for town beautification; volunteered at the local senior center; lifelong member of Grace Church; trustee of the local school for the deaf. You get the idea.
This goes on for paragraph after paragraph. It makes me feel like such an unaccomplished person! Makes me want to run out and join something, volunteer for something.
Oh wait - that person was just a housewife, not a society matron!
The question is, do we want 'objective' obituaries? The OP made a reference to personally wanting either none or a humorous one. But if we wrote objective/journalistic obituaries for the average person, then people would suddenly start looking a lot worse/more mundane/realistic. And then we couldn't celebrate dead lives and pretend they continue in another imaginary realm, could we. Objective reality is corpses in the ground, not spirits in the sky.
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