Friday, March 7, 2008

I Swear I Am Writing My Own Obituary


Every day, the first thing Kaye does after getting dressed is run outside to get the newspaper so that she can read the obituaries. I am bemused at this. Mostly she doesn’t find anyone she knows, although that happens. I hate it when it turns out to be a 59-year-old student of hers (that happened recently). It just reminds me how old she’s getting. True, I’m aging at roughly the same rate as she is, but she has a head start on me. But today, she found a horribly hilarious obit. Some poor guy died and was survived by his “nearly devoted wife of 66 years.” I’m thinking they’d been married for almost 66 years. Maybe she wasn’t dearly devoted, but she surely was devoted to something to hang in there that long. I swear, I am writing my own obituary, sending it around to all my writing friends for proofreading and any suggestions. I will be selective about the suggestions part and avoid mentioning this to my relatives.

In case of a misprint in the newspaper, I suppose I should have fliers out for Kaye to distribute. She will be extremely devoted, bereft . . . and busy handing out fliers. Maybe she could put them under windshield wipers.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a terrible typo! Do you think they will publish a correction? How humiliating.

I've always liked the simple obits the best - for instance, I've seen a number for cats (in cat club newsletters and show magazines). There are the long rambly ones that tell the cat's life story starting from kittenhood; then there are the very simple, understated ones...

One that sticks in my mind is my friend putting a short obit saying "[Cat's name] - fell asleep in the sun, [date]." And that was it. Of course she loved the cat but didn't feel the need to express how much.

I suppose, because it was so short, it also reduced the chances of a newspaper typo creeping in. :-)

I've always aimed for that same reserved, unselfish succinctness, but every time a cat dies, I fall to pieces. I can't do the short sweet stuff. Worse luck.

Snark said...

Nah, they won't correct it. It would just draw more attention to it. I guess I just won't worry about my obit.

My maternal grandparents (that'd be Memaw and Gran-Gran in the blog) I will grieve for forever. But that's part of keeping them. Beyond that (so far) the only really horrible deaths have been two of my cats, Bill, who died of kidney failure and I finally took him to the vet and watched him die, and William, Bill's successor. He was 9 weeks old when we got him, and 9 months old when I was sitting in bed reading at 4:30 am while he took a bath, and then keeled over dead. It was an enlarged heart that would've happened anyway. Now we have James. I cried for months over Bill and William. William died on December 23rd, and I haven't put up a tree since. Maybe this year . . .

Anyway, yeah, cats can be really important to their people.

Anonymous said...

I've always thought planting something in their memory was a pleasant idea but I've never had green enough fingers to try that. I was given potted spring bulbs when my last but one cat died, and those are still around. :-)

Qalmlea said...

Actually, the surviving family would likely be grateful not to need to write the obit themselves. My mom really struggled with writing one for my grandma (her mom). Could be something to put in the same place as a last will and testament. *shrugs*