A couple of days ago my husband pointed out the obituary of an older woman I knew when I first moved to Tennessee. For a few years I considered her and her husband good friends. He passed away a few years ago. Although I lost contact with them, I ran into her at Thanksgiving last year, caught up with her news and we became Facebook friends. They were a precious couple and are missed by all who knew them. Reading her obituary reminded me of how nice it was to be her friend.
According to the Appalachian American Genealogy website, obituaries can be “very helpful in determining family relationships.” People read them for many reasons and it may seem the older we get the more we read them and the more often we find someone we know who has passed away. My husband has always enjoyed reading the obituary column in any newspaper. He even reads them online from cities and towns where he once lived. An obituary is more than a death notice as it tells who died, when, sometimes why; who his family was; his accomplishments; and then who he left behind. Funeral arrangements and visiting hours as well as where and how friends and family can honor his memory may be listed.
My family asked me to write my father’s obituary when he passed away. It was my pleasure but I went over the limit of words and we got charged a nice sum for doing so. People said I did a fine job writing the obituary and we laughed that I used too many words.
As much as he enjoys reading an obituary, my husband wants to write his own obituary NOW (although he has no plans to die anytime soon) and he wants to write it in first person, which is unheard of. He wants just the facts and he plans to end it by saying, “I died ________________.” And he wants me to fill in the blank.
I write for a living and he wants me to finish a sentence? That’s funny. I get the last word.
Lifetime Writing 