Obituaries

When I first read the title of this chapter I thought to myself, "Great, obituaries. Just the thing I need to depress me on a rainy Saturday." But as I read the first page I got really, really overly excited. Obituaries are basically a quick summation of one's life that are commonly breezed over by readers. I have often thought about what my own obituary would read and hoped that it would be interesting and proof that I lived a full life. At the end of the first page there's a quote that includes the phrase "glorified obituary" and it instantly made me ponder about what I would have to achieve in my lifetime to earn such an obituary. I then turned the page and remembered that this chapter was not about me.

The second page was just as exciting as the first. I never thought I could be so interested in obituaries. It turns out that 50% of readers read the obituaries, which I never knew. Considering this, it is amazing how many boring obituaries I have read in my life. It's not that the person's life seemed unbelievably dull, it's that the writing did not stand up to glorify the person's life. The thing is, after a person dies there is not always much left of them to carry on a legacy. I feel that a well-written obituary keeps that person around for a little longer in some way or another. If the reader didn't know them before they died, they do now. They can look into what this person achieved in their life and get to know what this person stood for. Yes, maybe it is a little late, but it's well worth it.

It somewhat depresses me that newspapers can't cover all the obituaries. I get it, it makes complete sense but I feel like everyone deserves to be written about. Maybe, someday, I will make a newspaper that is just obituaries. I don't know how many people will read it though, just weird people like me. It would not be a good business move...

The rest of the chapter is more like a general, formulaic textbook. It starts out with how to write a lead in an obituary and the various approaches one can take. The best leads are obviously the ones that include the interesting characteristics of the person's life and prove why they "deserve" to have their obituary published.

The example of the Michael Kelly's obituary with and without stories from his family and friends was helpful in this chapter. It'd be so easy to just write the obituary with the form from the mortuary but it would have no flavor, and would not live up to the person's life at all. "Good reporting produces stories of life," says the textbook.

Another point of interest I found in this chapter was the section on interviewing family and friends. At first I think I would be terrified to call any family members who just had a loved one pass away. But the more I get to thinking about it the more I realize that they probably want to talk about the good things the person did in his/her life. It's a time for them to praise their loved one and tell the reporter what they want the world to know about this person. I have to say that I would still be scared to make that initial call.

Overall, I was (surprisingly) very pleased with this chapter. I always thought that writing obituaries would be the shittiest job ever but through reading this chapter I have realized it would actually be something I could enjoy. I like writing about people, and I like writing nice things about people. I like "stalking" people and trying to find more and more about them. I am an avid people watcher and eavesdropper. I'm just really interested in people I guess. This could be good for me. The only thing that sucks is that all the people I would be writing about would be dead...

Oh, and also this chapter reminds me of one of my favorite movies My Girl. The dad (Dan Akroyd) writes obituaries and there's a scene where he talks about his choice of wording. He likes to use "in lieu of flowers" as opposed to "instead of flowers." That has hardly anything to do with this though.