Looking Ahead To Our Final Retirement Day, Sugar-Coated Obit Or Other?

[linda814]

Originally Posted by boogie'smom

I hope this is not off topic.

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.

Our local radio station recite them over the air....never heard it done before except here!!!

[newcomputer]

Originally Posted by linda814

Our local radio station recite them over the air....never heard it done before except here!!!

yes, linda, they still do that here, too

[Lodestar]

Originally Posted by tijlover

I've been scanning the Obituary columns for decades, don't ask my why, it's an addiction!

The vast majority of them are sugar-coated, as if they walked around on this planet with angel wings, or their sh*t never stunk!

"She would have done anything for her children!"
"The most loving, selfless mother or father you could ask for!"
"She was totally dedicated/loyal to her husband for 60 years!"
"He will now be rejoined in Heaven with his loving wife of 50 years!:
"All the grandchildren worshipped their grandmother!"
"His wife and children always came first!"

How about you? Are you planning on have a typical sugar-coated obituary some day, or are you planning to have your obituary stand out from the rest, perhaps with some humor thrown in? Or some dashes of brutal honesty? And are you going to write in advance or leave it to one of your grandchildren who worshipped the ground you walked on? Or leave it to your loyal/dedicated wife or husband to write? And, why insult your intelligence, no 4-letter or 7-letter (adding ing) words will be allowed!

I was in the library one day some years ago and a very elderly couple were sitting nearby reading the daily paper. I overheard him say to her, "Oh Mama, look at all the young people who are dying - sixty-eight, seventy-two. . ." Had to stifle a guffaw.

I always read the obits in case a friend or classmate's parents have died. There are some funerals I wouldn't want to miss or would want to send a card or flowers. There's nothing much more embarrassing than seeing an old friend and asking about a parent only to hear they have died.

So I've given it some thought. I don't know who will write mine; probably my daughter.

I've thought about jotting down a few community and job related accomplishments that she wouldn't know or think of. But, honestly, I've read some obituaries that go on forever with memberships and accomplishments and I don't care to sound boastful even after I'm gone. I do like the idea of it reflecting how I interacted with other people and what I cared about in life.

I don't know. Maybe it's best to just let the family figure out what they want to write since it's all for the living anyway.

The only thing I've actually requested is that if I should die of disease, please, please don't write that I died after a "long and courageous battle." That always sounds to me like She lost!

[luzianne]

I don't want and obit and I really would like to be cremated and have no service. I'd rather my adult kids and other family members and friends just get together if that is comforting to them, but not have to go through a funeral or memorial service. I don't like to have a fuss made over me in life and I don't want a fuss made over me in death, either. But I know it's not all about me, either, it's about the survivors. But I will let them know that NO SERVICE is perfectly fine with me.

[thinkalot]

I see nothing wrong with pets being mentioned. They probably loved the deceased more than most of the survivors.

I read the online obits of 3 newspapers everyday. Some are fascinating, especially the WW2 vets, concentration camp survivors, family members of the famous that did a lot in their own life.

The ones that mention their career more than just in passing I could do without.

[Dollydo]

Originally Posted by newenglandgirl

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!!

The only word that comes to my mind is: Wow!

Me, no obit, no nothing, people who cared about me, knew me, no need to attempt to boost my ego...it is too late!

[gentlearts]

Funny, but I have been thinking about this lately too. As a person who has done a lot of work on the family's genealogy I know how important bits and scraps of information about a family member are. On the other hand, I am a private person, so when I read a huge obituary about someone who wants me to know every small bit of his life and how "wonderful" he was, I am put off.
I dwell somewhere in between the stark facts and enough information to give those who come after me a glimpse of who I was.

May I share this wonderful obituary? I have posted it before, but it is the greatest.

(NANCY) LEE HIXSON of Danville, Ohio died at sunrise on June 30, 2009. She was born Nancy Lee Wood in Cleveland on April 17, 1944, baptised at St. Paul's Lutheran Church, Valley City Ohio, and confirmed at St. John's Lutheran Church, Independence Ohio. In addition to being a teetotaling mother and an indifferent housekeeper, she was a board certified naturopath specializing in poisonous and medicinal plants; but she would like to point out, posthumously, that although it did occur to her, she never spiked anyone's tea.

She often volunteered as an ombudsman to help disadvantaged teens find college funding and early opened her home to many children of poverty, raising several of them to successful, if unwilling, adulthood. She also enjoyed a long life of unmentionable adventures and confessed she had been a rebellious teen-aged library clerk, an untalented college student on scholarship, a run-away Hippie, a stoic Sunday School teacher, a Brownie leader, a Grange lecturer, an expert rifleman, a waitress, a wife once or twice, a welder, an artist, and a writer.

She was in earlier years the president of Rainbow Systems Trucking Company, Peninsula Ohio, and she drove tractor-trailers over-the-road hauling freight commodities to startled customers from Minnesota to Florida. She was the CEO of the Cuyahoga Valley Center of Outdoor Leadership Training (COLT), where she lived in a remote and tiny one-room cabin in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Despite the lack of cabin space and dining table, she often served holiday dinners to friends and relatives and could seat twenty at the bed.

She lived the last twenty-three years at Winter Spring Farm near Danville where she built a private Stonehenge, and planted and helped save from extinction nearly 50 varieties of antique apple trees, many listed in A.J. Downing's famous orchard guide of 1859 - among them such delicacies as Summer Sweet Pearmain, Sops of Wine, Westfield Seek No Further, and Duchess of Oldenburg. Her homemade cider and wine were reputed to cause sudden stupor. She befriended countless stray dogs, cats, horses, and the occasional goat. She was a nemesis to hunters, and an activist of unpopular, but just, causes. In short, she did all things enthusiastically, but nothing well.

After moving to Danville, she bravely suffered with a severe and disabling disorder and a ten-year battle with lymphoma that ultimately took her life. She was often confined to the home where she continued to tirelessly volunteer and donate her limited resources to needy teens in the area, always cheered by their small and large achievements. Sympathy and big donations may be extended at this time. She was predeceased by her father Dwight Edward Wood of the Ohio pioneer Wood family of Byhalia, who died in the Columbus Jail having been accused of a dreadful crime, and by her second father Ted A. Cznadel of Danville who adopted her, loved her and raised her despite it all. She is survived by her dearly beloved son, her heart and soul and every breath, Christopher Daniel Hixson of Akron, (a sterling citizen who rose above his murky childhood with a scandalous mother), and by his loving partner Mitchell Kahan. She is also survived by her mother, the opinionated and stubborn Ann Gall Cznadel; by her brother the Rev. Dr. Thomas R. Sluberski, a Lutheran minister and professor, most recently of Rio de Janeiro; by her gentle, ecological brother Gregory T. Cznadel, a quality manager of Cleveland; by her talented sister Linda R. Cznadel Hauck, a librarian from sea to shining sea, of San Luis Obispo; by her genius nephew and godson Matthew Hauck of Minneapolis; and the other half of her heart, her patient friend and backstairs lover of thirty years, David Paul Bleifus who resides at the farm.

Ms. Hixson traced her lineage directly through eleven generations to Governor William Bradford of the ship Mayflower and the Plimouth Colony, and was in the process of membership to The Mayflower Society. She was a long-time card carrying member of the ACLU, the Democratic Party, and of MENSA. The family wishes to thank Dr. Gene Morris for his care, understanding and sense of humor through it all; Dr. Paul Masci of Cleveland Clinic Wooster; and Dr. Skip Radwany and the nursing staff of the Palliative Care Center at Summa for their compassion as Lee shuffled off this mortal coil. Cremation has taken place. Immediate family and friends will gather at Stonehenge on a sunny summer day to celebrate her life.

Interment is in the family plot at Brinkhaven Hilltop Cemetery in Brinkhaven, Ohio, where she will await an eventual and probable slide down the cliff to the Mohican River below. In lieu of flowers, please pray for the Constitution of the United States. "Now Voyager depart, (much, much for thee is yet in store)…" - Walt Whitman Fischer Funeral Home : Warsaw, Ohio (OH)