Tag Obituary

Poor me. Alas, I knew me well

Michael 8 Comments

The great comedian, song and dance man, and Gracie’s husband, George Burns said, “I wake up every morning and I read the obituaries. If my name isn’t in there, I eat breakfast.” Somewhere around 517 other lesser stage dwellers have also uttered those lines. I too read the obituaries every morning but I like breakfast, it’s my favorite morning meal, so I am sure to read them after breakfast so if I am there, I won’t miss my eggs that day. Imagine my surprise when last week I found me there. Hold that thought, we’ll be back in a moment.

Checking the obituaries is not a morbid pastime. In addition to seeing if there might be a name I recognize, it is also a way of centering oneself to the day, and to remind oneself of the true importance of the day. One thing all those people in all those little notices have in common is that they won’t have today. It is a great honor to be able to be the recipient of another day. It is why every morning the first t thought I verbalize is, “Thank you God for another day. Help me become the person you want me to be today.”

With all that said, you can imagine my surprise when I say my name in last Thursday’s list of those who will not be aging another day this year. It’s a fairly common name but it’s still a shock to see it in writing, unless it’s in the sections devoted to lottery winners or unexpected awardees of a major endowments. What really sent. my heart aflutter, the age was right. I seriously began to regret that morning’s breast was a simple sausage and egg sandwich on a muffin with fresh berries in yogurt and not something more fitting for a last meal. Eventually I calmed down long enough to notice the middle initial was different from mine. Whew! That was close.

It solidified in my the long held contention to approach each day expecting the unexpected. We broached that subject yesterday at the ROAMcare Uplift post Up Down Round and Round, only we didn’t compare life to the obituary column.  Use used an amusement park instead. I think it turned out pretty well. Check it out and see if you agree.

Oh so close!

Michael 2 Comments

It’s been a couple weeks now, I was reading the daily headlines and took note of one, “Ginny Mancini Dies.” Of all the thoughts I could have had, the one I had was, ”Wow, she must have been 100!” and not hyperbolically. I knew Henry Mancini would have been almost 100 because my father would be almost 100 and they went to school together. As I read the obituary, I discovered she was close, but not quite. The former Ginny O’Connor was 97 years, 3 months old at the time of her death.

Today’s post is not about Ginny Mancini, nor is it about Henry, not even my father. It’s about 97 year olds and other peri-centenarians.

Undoubtedly you remember some of my best posts have to do with obituaries. Well, not completely true, but I find them fascinating even if I wrote about them only twice, and one of those two times rather obliquely. It really doesn’t matter who is the subject of the obituary, (not to me, but I won’t speak for the family), it matters what is said in those first few phrases. Naturally you can’t get to the meat of the matter without getting past the name and age. We already talked about those names (What’s in a (Nick)Name), so now let’s look at those ages. For the last few weeks, I’ve been doing just that, looking at the ages of those memorialized in the daily obituary column. I’ve discovered a really popular age for people to move on to Phase II, at least for the last couple weeks, is 97.

20200430_164951On one single day I noted seven of the 15 death notices were for 97 year olds. One of the others was 95 and another 93. The following day featured obits at four more folks aged 97 and one 98. Over the course of that week, I counted fourteen 97 year olds, three at 96, five 95, two who were 91, and the lone 98 year old. (Yes, I did.) (Really.) (So don’t believe me, I know I did!!) That’s a bunch of almost centenarians. During that whole week I also noticed one news article noting the upcoming 104th birthday of a local citizen and of one other joining the ranks of the century-folks. These weren’t just your run of the mill, “John Doe Turns 100” fluff pieces. They were in-depth discussions on the secret to long living, happy lives, and what’s the most surprising thing you’ve seen in your century of roaming the earth. That’s important to me and it’s equally important to me that I get to 100. I find myself fascinating and deserve to be interviewed too.

The surest ways I’ve found for a non-athlete, non-politician, non-celebrity type person to be queried on the state of the world are to win a Nobel Prize or turn 100. In my case, turn 100. But in that one week I spotted only two hitting the hundred (or better) mark while twenty people had their famous 15 minutes distilled to three minutes or less reading time for just getting oh so close.

You know, even considering how old I feel on a lot of days, especially after rising but before coffee, getting to even “just” 97 seems like such a long way away. I wonder what Nobel categories I could sneak my way into.

What’s in a (Nick)Name

Michael 1 Comment
As we move deeper and deeper into our isolation it’s becoming harder and harder to find an article, post, blog, podcast, phone call (!) that doesn’t reference COVID-19. But I think I’ve finally found something I can write about where the virus isn’t right up there in the first paragraph. Ooops.
 
Anyway… how about death? Actually death notices – you know, obits, necrologies, life tributes, obituaries. I’ve noticed something about them, oh yes I have indeed. And not just that there are getting to be a lot of them out there nor that I haven’t shown up in one yet. I’m seeing that a lot of people don’t seem to know their own name. I’m guessing here.
 
Just recently there have been a lot of obituaries in the paper for people with multiple names. I don’t mean the deceased married woman who is listed with both her married and maiden names. I mean people with 2, sometimes 3 given names. I saw one just this morning (real name changed to protect his guardian angel from being teased by the other guardian angels): Joseph “JB” “Joey,” “Scooter” Brown. Ummmm. Really? Are there people reading the obituaries coming across Joey’s name and aren’t sure if they only saw Joseph listed that they could not be sure if that was the same Joey who was their friend? And those who didn’t know him as anything but Scooter, what are the chances they even know Scooter Who?
 
I saw a lot of them over the past few days, and some pretty colorful monikers too. Stucky, Gar Gar, Dickie Lou, Butch, Baby, Babe, Mac (whose last name did not start Mc or Mac), Birdie, and Stitch to name several more than a few.
 
I remember the gang my father hung out with. Nobody had a real name. Actually they all did but they didn’t Anglicize their names so they used nicknames to make calling them easier. Among them were Bunny, Ninny, Patsy, Mare, Jojo, and Tuner. These were all guys by the way. But the obituary didn’t read John “Bunny” Doe. It was just John Doe and everybody knew that was Bunny. No, multiple choice names weren’t necessary and they still got good send offs. Mostly because everybody knew everybody then and the crowd at the funeral home was already spilling out to the parking lot before the obituary was even published. I can’t imagine the funeral director would even put an order through for Ninny to be printed on the prayer cards. Some of the other names might even make a prayer card spontaneously combust! 
 
I can’t imagine my obituary reading anything but the name I have on my driver’s license. And I’m not so sure about this trend of putting pictures in obituaries either. You look at some of them, “John Doe, 93, died in his sleep after a long, long, long illness,” and there’s a picture of some young guy in full hiking regalia climbing out of a canoe. If it gets to where they insist on a picture then I guess if they’re going to use my driver’s license name they might as well use that picture too. And I already have the plaque for the drawer preordered and that has the name from the check I sent them to pay for the engraving. Just fill in the end date. 
 
Hmm, you know, I wonder what’s on Scooter’s headstone.
 
 
20200430_164951

Till Death Do Us Part

Michael Leave a comment

She of We asked He of We if he saw the story about the feuding children who were posting competing obituaries.  Oddly enough, He of We who seems invariably to come across only the most bizarre news while trying to find the local weather, sports scores, or lottery numbers, hadn’t.  Since he can’t let much get by him he went in search and found not only that which She of We had referenced, but several other articles decrying bad behavior in the world of remembrances.  Let’s catch you up on what we found.

That which started it all started in of all places, Florida.  The Sunshine State wasn’t sporting very bright people when a seemingly doting son decided he was going to vent his resentments with his siblings in mom’s printed 15 Minutes.  His paid tribute billed himself as the loving son and the other two children as the daughter who betrayed her and the son who broke her heart.  Such a close family.  Word is that the daughter wrote a second obituary but that one seems to be unavailable for viewing to the Internet world.  There was one article that said it contained basically the same information as that of the first without the colorful descriptions of the siblings.  And mom’s age was different.  Maybe they weren’t so close.

It got us to thinking about the etiquette behind obituaries.  We’ve written about workplace etiquette (Fire Them All), shopping etiquette (Clean Up on Aisle Ten), restaurant etiquette (Terms of Appreciation, You want fries with that?), even parking lot etiquette (Parking Wars).  We didn’t think we’d have to ever discuss death etiquette.  Apparently we do.  Not only have we now seen how people can’t keep their pettinesses out of the paper, we’re also aware of viewings, wakes, and services which have been interrupted by arguments, fights, and visits by the police who weren’t there visiting the deceased.

Clearly the best way to approach this issue is proactively.  We plan to write our own obituaries.  And while we’re at it, plan the rest of the party as well.  Who knows us better?   We’ve all read obituaries that just aren’t quite right.  Is the surviving son in Sonoma Sam or Sid?  Didn’t daughter Debbie divorce Dick the dolt?  Since when did he belong to the Loyal Order of the Goose?  It’s understandable.  Obituaries get written in times of extreme stress and grief.  And apparently nobody is checking them too closely for content.  We’ll get the details right.

Some other details about our last hurrah need to be worked out also.  It’s not that we want to celebrate death but we both are of a faith that looks forward to an afterlife with our God and those who have already gone.  You guys left behind have to learn to suck it up and wait your turn.  So no mournful music, no dreary dress, no dull visitations.  We prefer lots of light, pictures, upbeat music, and something spiffy to wear.  We don’t want to look like we’re going to a funeral at our funerals.   We think perhaps a bright blouse, tropical print shirt, and maybe a straw hat at a jaunty angle is a good tone to set for the rest of the crowd.   

Speaking of tone, no organ music at the funeral home.  There are stacks of jazz CDs in both of our cars.  Pick out a couple of handfuls and hustle them over to the mortuary.  If they can’t figure out how to work a CD, find someone under the age of 30.  He or she will be able to download them all onto an MP3 player to make it go on through 2 or 3 visitation sessions without having to change it.  At the church we’d like to hear some upbeat scripture readings.  David chatted about topics plenty more upbeat than “the valley of the shadow of death.”  Fast forward a couple of psalms to “remember your love and kindness…not my sins from when I was younger” for something more chipper and probably a little more accurate where we’re concerned.

Now, getting us around on that last day.  Do we really have to use a hearse?  Dull, dull, dull.  There’s a perfectly good red convertible in He of We’s garage.  Prop up Whichever of We in the passenger seat and let’s go out for a spin.  That just leaves the closing music.  Everybody has passed on by, said “see you later,” and now we need some final travelling music.  She of We thought perhaps, “And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain” sung by nobody other than Frank.  It is a terrific send-off for her with the living a full life, tasting it all, and doing it her way.  He of We is leaning more toward keeping the party going and is calling on Irving Berlin to pave the way with Alexander’s Ragtime Band.  We have to wait until halfway through the chorus but there the lyrics say it all, “Come on along, come on along, let me take you by the hand. Up to the man, up to the man, who’s the leader of the band.”  

We know it’s not a terribly original idea.  People have been making their own final arrangements for some time.  You take away a lot of stress at an already stressful time for stressed out people who aren’t always thinking their best.  We figure we’ll pick the mid-price packages all the way around preserving as much of the inheritance as we can and nobody has to feel guilty about taking the cheap way out.  Between the cool clothes, upbeat music, optimistic readings, and cheery bon voyage, nobody will notice we’re going in little more than a high class pine box.  And if they do, nobody can blame anybody but us.  And frankly, we really won’t care.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?