LisaPie & PattyCakes Read the Obits

My friend PattyCakes and I read the obits together over the phone and drink big mugs of hot tea on Sunday mornings.  Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are sad, sometimes they are hysterically funny, you just never know how they will turn out.  Well, other than  the fact that the star of each is going to be dead. But you know what I mean.  Do you want to trust your illiterate, grief-stricken kinfolks to write your obit?  Do you think they can do your life justice?  I am sure all of you have heard that little story about the gravestone showing your name and then Born Date -dash- Died Date and that the important part is the Dash.  We all need to focus on the Dash, how we live our live, yadda-yadda-yadda.  This is what goes in to your obituary, what you do with your Dash.  Do you currently have anyone in your family who is qualified to write your obit?

After reading every obit in our fair city for several years now, PattyCakes and I are going to write each others.  We have learned what to say and most importantly, what NOT to say!  You would shocked, amazed and downright bumfuzzled by what people want you to know about their dear departed.  And some of this stuff is freaking hi-laaaaaar-i-ous!

We do read the whole obituary and then we dissect it.  First off, we look for the euphemism for "dead", some people die, some pass away, some were called home by their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, some pass peacefully surrounded by their loved ones, one was sucker-punched by ovarian cancer, and one paraphrased Ronald Reagan talking about the space shuttle disaster and "slipped the surly bonds of Earth and touched the face of God".  Lots of men get called to go fishing with Jesus, some become angels.  You just never know what people are going to say about death.

Secondly, we read the names.  As in the almost always pre-deceased parents of the subject of the obit, these people are from around 100 years ago (usually) and have names like Norman, Gladys, Ennis, Emmitt, Mary, those sorts of names.  Then we come to the stars of these little stories, because that's what an obituary is, isn't it?  A small story to sum up one's life and the impact they made.  Mostly these people are anywhere from 100 to about 50 years of age.  Sadly, there are babies, children and really young people sprinkled in there, but thankfully, not the majority.  Most people have lived a long and full life.  So the names of 50 to 100 year old people are a new category, we see Rita, Evelyn, Sandra, Louise and the like.  This area has historically been settled by German, Polish, Czech, and Mexican people so we see a lot of names that trace their family lineage.  Then you get into the kids, grandkids and great-grandkids names and that whole generational thing.  All those Crystal, Krystal, Khrystell, Brianna, Bree Anna, and all those names with all those spelling variations will be the Mildreds, Leonas, and Clemencias of the future.  I know they don't believe it now, but it's the way of things.

Then we check out the photo and wonder why the family chose that particular photo.  Was it from the happiest time in their life?  Was it of a family event like a wedding where everyone has great memories of Mee-maw wearing that dress?  Was it from 1944 when Grandpa was 17 and joined up the Armed Services?  It is a bit disconcerting to see a young person's picture and say "Awww, another young one, how sad" and then read he was 102.  No one took a picture of him in the last 70 years?  Really?  Nothing that might let his neighbors know who it was?  Oh!  And the worst way to do a picture is if it's of a couple.  Don't put in a picture of mom and dad if only dad has died.  Why do you want to put a picture of your alive-and-kicking mom in the obits?  That's just asking for bad karma, don't you think?

We usually look for a cause of death.  Sometimes it is right there up at the top with the dates and such, but sometimes you have to read the part that says "the family would ask in lieu of flowers that a donation be made to the Such-and-Such foundation" and that usually will clue you in to whether it was cancer, alzheimer's, heart, or whatever.

Another thing that we always giggle over is there is this laundry list of relations; mom, dad, siblings and their spouses, wife, kids, their spouses, grandkids, great-grands, and then finally:  either a "host of others", a "plethora of nieces, nephews, etc", and even "oodles of friends".  Here is a no-no for listing the progeny:  DON'T SAY COUNTLESS!!  Wth???  Countless?  Seriously, you can't count the great-grandkids?

I always think it is really sad that the family thinks the most important things to list are the career accomplishments.  I would bet dollars to donuts that the dearly departed wasn't thinking about that award back in 1978 for selling the most insurance when their time came.  Keep it personal, unless you are talking about winning a Nobel Peace Prize or a Pulitzer or something along those lines!  Then brag away, be proud!

Yesterday, we were laughing so hard that I damn near peed myself about this one mom's choice of names for her children.  Maybe it was the dad?  Maybe she named some and he chose the others?  And I don't want to offend anyone, so please bear with me.  But this particular family has a Czech-Polish surname so right off the bat you want to be careful with first names so that it's not too big a mouthful. The mom and dad had perfectly good names for early 1900 and then here is the list of their children:
Henry,
Thomas,
Cleo (also a man),
Ignatz (seriously????)
and last but not least:

Boleslaw.

I don't know if it is pronounced Bole-slaw like cole slaw or not, but after we saw it that way, we couldn't get any other way!  Oh, we were bad.  PattyCakes was saying "Bole-slaw?!" over and over again.  And I was still stuck on "Ignatz".  Now tell me, if you had 5 boy children and you had come up with Henry and Thomas for the first two, would you be thinking along the lines of Cleo, Ignatz and Boleslaw for the next three?  I mean no disrespect to this family, I am sure they are lovely, upstanding people, but wtf?  And let me just further say that there were no Juniors listed for any of these five men.

Let me know if you are interested in hearing any more about the weekly obit reading, and I will see about posting more as long as I try to maintain some sense of decorum and preserve some privacy for these grieving families.  And I sure hope I haven't alienated any of my 3 or 4 readers by over-sharing my Sunday morning ritual with you.  Be gentle with the comments, please!