I hope the title of this post didn’t alarm you … but I recently read someone else’s post on the topic and it triggered some ideas of my own. Coincidentally, today’s local paper had nearly an entire page devoted to Obits!
Please forgive me if the subject offends you in any way.
I think most of us have noticed that Obits are pretty much a part of every local newspaper. While some are short and sweet, others are almost book length as the writer outlines the (noteworthy?) history of the deceased. Many are also accompanied by the assurance the person is now “in the loving presence of the Lord.”
If you have lived in an area “forever” (or at least for a number or years), you may enjoy reading the history of someone you know who has “passed on” — and if you are so inclined, to learn whether there will be a funeral or “celebration of life.”
Speaking for myself, the Obit section is not one of my “go-to” sections of the newspaper — and I don’t intend to have anyone write one for me when I die. But what about you? Do you want to leave a bit of “you” behind? Are there things you want people to know about you and/or remember you for? Are you inclined to write your own or do you plan to leave the task to others?
Nan's Notebook 
A death notice may be required, but an obituary is not. So it comes down to personal choices. I won’t have one, neither did my wife. All the people who need to know probably already did before the newspaper came out.
“When I hear that trumpet sound,
I’m gonna get up out of the ground,
Ain’t no grave gonna hold my body down”, etcetera.
Yes, I believed that, and a majority of Christians still do. Bless their hearts. We just never tried to picture a skeleton bursting out of a steel coffin and a concert vault. Religion is probably the major reason behind obituaries.
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Yes … I agree that religion is usually the impetus, especially since so MANY start out with the fact the deceased is “in the loving arms …” But there are some who don’t include that, so there must be other reasons as well.
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My home town (a very small town, I should stress) recently announced their intention to place a small plaque in the Main Street in my honour. The reasons for this are laughable, but there I will be, on a lump of rock, alongside a few Olympic medalists, a couple of scientists and some guy who designed big buildings. The inference seems to be that, for all intents and purposes, I’m already dead. They contacted my wife who told them, “you can forget it – there’s no way he’ll agree to it”, but the trouble was that I already had agreed to it. I had thought that saying no might come across as sounding more arrogant than saying yes. Silly me. To make matters worse they asked me to write something about my life experiences to go into a magazine to be produced for the induction ceremony.
So I have already written my obituary, it seems.
It’s not a great feeling, to be honest with you.
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Don’t leave us guessing! What have you done that caused your home town to grant you this “small plaque”???
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From doing nothing much, but doing it a lot.
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ah but you must have done it with such flair to be noticed that way. It’s a special talent to do nothing with such creativity. =)
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I thank you, Judy, for making that fairly questionable assumption, but I would immodestly like to think that my persistent effort to avoid any sort of real job was conducted with a certain panache. I have now transitioned from continuously doing very very little to permanently doing absolutely nothing, and whilst most people assume this to be ‘retirement’ it is, from my perspective, merely a small refinement of a life’s work.
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Coincidences abound. I woke up this morning feeling miserable in lots of ways, and to make myself feel better I finally wrote my Final Post. It isn’t an obit, just “a goodbye, I’m dead if you are reading this” message to all my internet friends. Call it what you want, but I hate when people just disappear from our blogs, and it takes weeks or months or maybe years to notice.
Of course, it is up to my partner if she publishes it, but I showed her how.
One final word from the crematorium…
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Interesting idea … an “online” obit. (I hope I never have to read it!)
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But I gave it such a cute title?
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You could sit down and write a series of posts, all to be scheduled to appear, once a month or so, after your demise. You could make them increasingly insulting, obnoxious and defamatory, without fear of repercussions.
That way you could keep people thinking that you were still alive indefinitely, but wishing that you weren’t.
Infamy and immortality all in one go.
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Thanks, but that sounds like work. I’m allergic to work!
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Oh yes. Me too, and it’s been an allergy that’s just about killed me
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🤣
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One thing you always have to consider, when finally (finally) realizing that some of your most prolific and/or profane writers have disappeared–it may not be them that disappeared, but the gossamer thin thread that lets us actually get in here and root around. I was locked out of my old blog, for no discernable reason, two years ago. It’s still there, and I can read it, but I can’t post there.
I signed up for WordPress at one point but it was so complicated I never bothered to take it any further. A few months ago I accidentally hit the magic button and there I am, legally a member. Yesterday WordPress decided I was no longer a member and blocked me. Lather, rinse, repeat. The online world is still full of potholes and surprises…
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They are. I wrote a whole website in 1999, I think. I was about 40 pages deep when the ISP was sold from its original owner to someone else. The new owner closed access to writing them, and nothing we, the builders at the time, could convince him to reopen them. So, like you, the website is still there, stuck in time forever. A beautiful work of who I was at that moment.
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I might leave everyone a poetic ‘ To-do’ list. Other than that, I trust whatever my daughter decides 🙂
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No obit, no funeral and I’ll be cremated…only a few friends and most of my family gone. Plus I’m a private person…and in 100 years, no one will even know who any of us were…
Different if you’re someone famous or very active in their community or from a large still living family…just not my thing..
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Yeah … that’s pretty much my outlook as well.
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That’s about where my husband and I are in our thinking; we have two trees in our yard, a maple I planted when we moved here in 1973 and an oak my mother’s husband planted, from an acorn he found. My husband and I are both aiming for cremation, and we are still arguing over who gets scattered around which tree…when you find a place you love, you don’t want to move too far from it.
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I’m assuming you live in the country/county? I doubt city bureaucrats would allow this …
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er. yes. Neighbors do get so edgy when they see someone digging up a perfectly good lawn…we live 1/2 mile from the main road (not street) and a bit of ash scattering is only good for the soil, anyway.
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I remember when I was a child and lived, for a time, with my grandmother. First thing after making her morning cuppa and bringing in the newspaper was to turn to the obituaries to see if anybody she knew had died. I never go in search of an obituary unless I already know the person has died, and not always even then. When I die, there will be no obituary and no funeral. My body will be cremated and the girls can do with the ashes whatever they want … toss ’em in the trash bin for all I care, for those ashes are not me, just like the bones and decaying organs people spend thousands of dollars to bury (and take up valuable land space) are not the dead person. A dead person’s spirit lives on in the memories they left behind with friends and loved ones … bones, ashes, words and ceremonies are a waste of time, effort, and money.
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agreed. My husband’s family has a very old plot in the town cemetery, and as far as anyone will be concerned, we are ‘buried’ there with someone to fill in the names and dates. But beyond that it really doesn’t matter all that much where.
I surely hope so, anyway…
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Who is the dead person then?
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What you’re burying is not the dead person, but merely the shell he or she was housed in.
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That would be an interesting post, that somehow you are somehow separate from the chassis, but only a visitor to it. That is a social idea that is not part of other cultures.
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Perhaps I’m an anomaly, but I’ve always felt that my mind is who I am, and my body is simply a container, often a stubborn one with its own direction. No, I’m sure it’s not a cultural norm, but it’s how I view it. But then, I shoved religion and the whole ‘god’ thing out at around age 5, when nobody had answers and I began to see the world as it is, so perhaps I’m just a realist who doesn’t need the geegaws that others seem to need.
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Word for word Jill is exactly how I feel, in fact I think my next “Will” is going to include the words flush ashes down toilet as the best part of me went down there everyday 🙂
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I fully agree! People cling to such things as ashes as if there were some magic there, but they are just that … ashes.
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What bothers me about dying is the waste of all the time we spent learning, knowing, being. I mean, one last breath and there goes Einstein, Winnie the Pooh, Tokien, everyone. I fervently hope those minds are searching for their new owners, and will continue on in another body. Otherwise it seems such a damn waste to put all that effort into a life and then have it stuck in a grave for eternity…
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Ahhhhh … but was it really wasted? Or did we pass our knowledge down to the next generation(s) … did we use our knowledge to do our part in trying to make the world a little bit better place? In my view, knowledge is never wasted. Sure, some things we will take to the grave with us, but the important things, we have passed on to others. Winnie the Pooh, Tolkien, and the others are immemorial … they live in the hearts of us all forever.
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I want no bit about me when my life is through,
So when it’s time to bid this world adieu,
I’ll say to it, “Did my best, no thanks to you, friend….
And leave the “rest”to the bitter end.
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I always read the obits. So many of my friends have died in the last several years (a tsumani of death) & I like to see if anyone I know has passed. Sundays are always heavy obit days … many people wait until the Sunday paper to post an obituary because most people get the Sunday paper; very few people get it on a daily basis. Right after holidays are heavy, too. When I worked for Hospice of the Western Reserve in Cleveland, our spiritual advisor, Sister Marguerite told me that many people say, “I just want to live until Christmas to see the family” or Easter or whatever it is & then that’s how long they live.
Also, as a writer, I’m always looking for names for characters & the obits page is a great place to get ideas. I can get hung up on a name & that’ll end writing for that day & maybe the next day, too.
I have a burial plot in the cemetery where my grandparents & aunts & uncles are buried. My parents & other set of grandparents are buried in the Catholic cemetery nearby. The plot was given to me by my aunt. So yeah, I plan to be buried. I want a nice funeral (I’m sure my family will intervene & make it a funeral Mass but WTH, I’ll be dead so who cares) & I want bagpipes at the cemetery & then a good meal afterward. My family always has a decent party after a funeral.
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Well, it’s pretty apparent you’re thinking of those left behind … and that’s very considerate of you. I think many of us just figure we’re gone and the folks left behind will do what they’re going to do.
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Well, a lot of these people were/are my friends or family. & yeah, after we’re gone, life goes on, people do what they do, but we still need to memorialize our loved ones.
Also … I’ve learned that you never stop mourning your loved ones. That pain never goes away. It may change with time, but it doesn’t lessen. It may even increase. There’s people … friends, family … that I think about & miss … every single day.
Also, I’m a Buffalo girl. I look at the obits & I think, someday, this is going to be me. Someone will be reading about me. They won’t know me, but they’ll be seeing my picture & reading about me. I think about that.
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I read the local obituaries every day. I live in rural northwest Ohio. I’ve spent much of my life living here. I moved away in 70s, vowing never to return. I’ve had three more stints living here, the present one for 18 years. So much for moving, staying away.,🤣
I frequently see/read obituaries of people I presently know or knew in the past. I find obituaries fascinating; how people (or their families) sum up their lives. I plan to write my own obituary. Left to my snarky kids it would read, “Bruce Gerencser . . . From ass to ashes.” 🤣
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Very few people where I live buy the local newspaper, and the only obituaries are those paid for by relatives as a form of advertising revenue. I would not bother to ask my relatives to post one about me in a newspaper. I prefer to be remembered by the people that I care for, not by strangers I never met.
Best wishes, Pete.
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these days most of our local papers have disappeared, and about the only way anyone knows about a death is to witness it or hear about it from a neighbor. Or go online and find an obituary page for your state/county/town. I check them every day. At my age, I’m beginning to realize that my husband and I are at the far end of things, and anyone older than us is probably dead or will be soon.
This is not encouraging.
We are opting for private, low key stuff, if only to stave off my husband’s family, who revels in ministers, emotional farewells, t0ns of flowers and tears, and of course each one gets a rose on the way back to the house. Entirely over the top. I love them all, but they do tend to go all out for ceremonies.
The only thing I do regret is not being around long enough to see What Happens Next in maybe 20 years or more. It looks like it might be interesting. (And I can hardly wait for Yellowstone to let fly)
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We still have one weekly local paper, and that covers a large rural area including one market town. It mainly reports things like tractor thefts, traffic accidents, town fairs, or the closing down of shops or traders. I used to enjoy reading it at one time, but it became repetitive.
I am the oldest remaining male member of my family now, and my wife knows that I want a basic cremation, and no religious service of any kind at my funeral.
Best wishes, Pete.
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As a kid I remember thinking, that the marble Pro Patria plaques on our school walls were so very sad. They had under a swastica-cross the names and both birth and death dates of the men who had been pupils in the school and had fought and died against the Soviets. Some had died on the very same day with each other and some were very young.
When a friend of mine died few years back we, his friends and one of his uncles (the one he liked), sat down in the kitchen of his funeral, that was in an old schoolhouse with one of those marble plaques. We said aloud his deeds of fame, so that the Valkyries would hear them and come to carry him away, though his wife had him buried on a churchyard of a pretty little medieval church. None of us really believe in any of such nonsense, and neither did he. Yet the ritual did us good. We remembered him, as we still do. That evening we got very drunk, but we were not so much sombre, as we were warmed by the telling and listening stories about our dear friend.
I do not care what happens to this body after I die, but I like the thought of my friends getting together to get drunk and to remember me by my deeds once more after I am no more. If it will not happen, I will not be there to mourn it did not.
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Well, since I’ve died from the COVID vaccine and came back several times now, I can say that obits are kinda overrated. I mean, why do one of you’re coming back when da lawd resurrects you?!
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I normally don’t read obituaries. As best I can tell, they are form of fiction.
When you first posted this, I considered replying that I didn’t want any obit. But I have since reconsidered. An obituary is not for the person who has died. It is for the people who remain alive. So I’ll leave it to others to decide if they want an obituary when I’m gone.
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I remember my parent’s game as they perused the obits, “Guess who died?” Many, many, many years later my half-sister would call (long distance). Her first words were, “Guess who died?” I never knew the person who had died. All I can say is Guess Who died regularly.
Clarence Darrow wrote (Mark Twain gets the false cred for similar words), “All men have an emotion to kill; when they strongly dislike some one they involuntarily wish he was dead. I have never killed any one, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.”
I shall give them no such satisfaction. However, most of them have already do so for me.
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There are parts of my life that I’d like to be quickly forgotten. 😳 If someone wants to write an obituary for me, that’s up to them. I don’t care. I’ll be too busy to care … probably figuring outn what I’ve learned and planning another incarnation. 😉
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Indeed, “everyone wants to be remembered”.
Quote-Patty
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Indeed! 😄
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