Are all obituaries bullshit?

My father died recently, and although he was a real jerk, his obituary makes it sound like he was a virtual saint. It seems to be less outright lies than voluminous lies of omission.

It lists the time he made a large donation to a certain charity, but doesn’t mention it was only because when he inherited a large sum, it was with the condition that he give 25% of it to charity. It wasn’t like his donation was him just being generous. And it talks about the illustrious jobs he had without mentioning that he was fired from EVERY SINGLE ONE of them for being such a big jerk. And it talks about how much he loved his grandchildren without mentioning that he’s never met most of them since he had so totally alienated his own kids.

Are all obituaries this deceitful?

No. My father was a good man.

Almost certainly, most are bullshit, to a degree. Hard to be anything other than cynical talking about this, really. If you want people to think you’re a good guy, die, and the idea someone stops being an asshole just because they bought the farm is as mindlessly idealistic as the idea they become a saint because they get cancer. No doubt plenty of good people died and left realistic obituaries, but I can’t see how those people wouldn’t be way in the minority.

They’re only deceitful when their subjects are unredeeming assholes. Which, fortunately, most people are not.

I do recall rolling my eyes at my step-grandfather’s funeral. After listening to his eulogy you’d think he was a saint, not the crotchety asshole who I had the displeasure of knowing.

Typically, obituaries focus on a dead person’s achievements and good qualities and don’t rehash all of his failings. That’s usually how people grieve. It’s also true that not everybody remembers a person the same way.

Here is an honest one.

Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. She will be met in the afterlife by her husband, Raymond, her son, Paul Jr., and daughter, Ruby.

She is survived by her daughters Marietta, Mitzi, Stella, Beatrice, Virginia and Ramona, and son Billy; grandchildren, Donnelle, Joe, Mitzie, Maria, Mario, Marty, Tynette, Tania, Leta, Alexandria, Tommy, Billy, Mathew, Raymond, Kenny, Javier, Lisa, Ashlie and Michael; great-grandchildren, Brendan, Joseph, Karissa, Jacob, Delaney, Shawn, Cienna, Bailey, Christian, Andre Jr., Andrea, Keith, Saeed, Nujaymah, Salma, Merissa, Emily, Jayci, Isabella, Samantha and Emily. I apologize if I missed anyone.

Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.

Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I hope she is finally at peace with herself. As for the rest of us left behind, I hope this is the beginning of a time of healing and learning to be a family again.

There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.

I think that most obituaries are written by the family members. In a big national newspaper, there will also be obituaries written by the newspaper staff of notable people. I often read the ones in the New York Times because they are often interesting.

That’s common in local papers. Local papers also often run death notices, which are created and distributed by funeral homes and filled out with details supplied by the family.

If that’s real, why would anyone go to the trouble of publishing it? I get that they didn’t like her, but it seems tacky to publicly tell the world how they felt about her.

Then surely it’s just as tacky to blabber on and on to the whole world about what a great person everyone else is? At least that one seems honest.

Its also really expensive. Most obits are paid death notices and therefore say very little other than “much loved husband of…father of…grandfather of…”

On the other hand, I get this one. My grandmother was a piece of work, but her behavior outside of the family was fine. So I run into her dearly beloved friends who offer condolences and tell me that I must miss her very much. Its really hard to say “thank you. She is much missed” And not add “by everyone who knew her but her immediate family, for most of us it was good riddance.”

Honesty is not the only virtue, you know; nor is it the highest one.

Very few persons are wholehearted, unalloyed bastards whom no one grieves. Speaking ill of the dead does nothing to punish them (they’re already dead, so no more can be done), but may cause suffering to their survivors who love them. I’m against increasing suffering in the world; enough of that happens without me.

An obituary isn’t “blabbering on,” and one person’s jerk is usually another’s friend.

A friend of mine, who was a police officer, died suddenly and unexpectedly about a year ago. He would regularly bullshit about, among other things, his history in some prestigious government agencies. Much of this stuff made it into his obituary. I knew him since he was a kid so knew his propensity for BS. I think even his parents were somewhat surprised by his “achievements”.

My father’s was quite accurate. To be fair it had many details of his military service, which were all true, as well as his civilian service record after he released and all those details were true as well. And it said he will be missed by many, which is also true.

I’m inclined to think it has a bit to do with what sort of person the obit is about. If they were a total douche in life, then yah, most of the obit would be crap. However, some people, like my dad, really are outstanding folks who go out of their way to help others, and have a sterling character. There’s no need to lie in that type of situation.

No, every word in my grandfather’s was the truth. It said he was a fine, gentle Christian man with a smile for everyone who loved to share his woodworking projects with anyone and everyone, who retired from this company and was a member of that church and had the other sizable number of kids and grandkids. And he was. He was the gentlest, most generous and joyful person I have ever known, and he counted all of our family as his kids and grandkids from the day he married into the family.

Was it the whole truth? Well, no. That was an accurate description of him for the twenty years I knew him, but he wasn’t always that person. He apparently had things in his youth he wasn’t proud of, things he’d done, people he’d hurt…and those people who only knew him as he was then would have read that obituary and probably thought it was a crock of shit.

It wasn’t a crock of shit. It was the truth as we knew it, the man as we knew him. They just knew a different man and a different truth.

We wrote my grandfather’s obituary and death notice for our local paper, the NYT.

The immediate family is responsible for the content, so if your father’s obituary was bullshit yo momma is to blame unless she’s dead in which case the you are to blame.

I doubt you wrote copy that the NY Times printed in their obituary section, unless you’re a staffer for the Times.

My grandmother was a nasty bitter alcoholic. However, writing that wouldn’t be very charitable so my family choose to just include her name, her survivors and her date of death. There is no need to say how wonderful someone is. The announcement is just that. I published notification of their passing. Let people think of the deceases as they may.