Marilyn Johnson, who also edited three major magazines in her 28 year career as a journalist, has written a book about obits. I haven’t yet read the book, “The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries” (Harper Collins, $24.95), but she talked about it with Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of The Wall Street Journal, (online WSJ, March 14, 2006). Ms. Johnson makes the excellent point that obits written in England top the list.
Thanks to the Internet and the time to roam, I have read many obits in English newspapers and have to agree with Ms. Johnson, who says, “They let them go on. And they let them entertain.” Some English obits make fascinating, enjoyable, smiling reading. They bring the dead to life and tell the good, the bad and the ugly. Snide remarks, peccadilloes, failures and successes and whatever else it takes to make the reader aware of whom and what the deceased was is fair game. The writers include journalists, relatives, friends, colleagues, enemies or even the deceased who anticipated his death and wanted the last word.
Here in the United States, and you can see this in your local daily paper, we are accustomed to reading where and when the deceased was born, his ancestors and descendants are listed as are his major life accomplishments. Most obits we read in our local papers are written by Funeral Directors based on information hurriedly gathered up immediately following the death. They are bland and devoid of anything that brings the deceased to life. The directors who write these usually lack the insight to portray the deceased as the hero or the scoundrel s/he was. The family pays to have them printed in the paper, based on the number of column inches.
Some newspapers will have a reporter write an occasional short piece about a dead politician, a business leader, senior church official (especially one convicted of sexual crimes) or an executed criminal. But they leave the rest of the dead alone and to the inadequacies of sorrowing families and funeral directors. Occasionally a letter to the editor will follow an obit by several days, and all of these are complimentary. No one discusses the warts.
What is the solution? Write your obit now and put it away with your funeral papers if you have such a file, or put it where your spouse or significant other will be able to find it if you die. You can study the outline of the obit formula by reading your daily newspaper. Do this for a week or two and then take up pen and paper and go to work. Put down who you were and what you did that makes you proud. If a life incident is everlasting enjoyable or otherwise significant to you, put it down and share it with the readers. Recently, I read obits where the deceased served with General Patton in the glorious march of the Third Army across France, and the relief of beleaguered American troops in the Battle of the Bulge. Now this belongs in an obit. It doesn’t matter if the deceased was a private who only saw General Patton for a few minutes at a time, he was proud to be in that Third Army and people ought to know it a hundred years from now when they look at old obits on yellowing pages, on microfilm or discs or whatever the storage device is in the future. If you love gardening and want to say something about some darn flower, put it down. If you lived your adult life with a same-sex partner go out the same way, put it in the obit. If you made a fortune or lost one, tell the readers. If you bagged a tiger hunting in Nepal but lost its skin in a poker game later, share the agony of victory and defeat. Let posterity know who and what you really were. Write your own obituary
