According to this the name that I usually am known as has died. I never thought much about Tony Schwartz, but I go by that name so much, that it seems like I have seen an obit with my name. Ever happen to you?
Hell, it is odd enough to see my alter ego has a page on Wiki.
SSG Schwartz
Happened to me last year. My last name is very common but my first name isn’t, so it was quite unsettling. Especially since several friends brought copies cut from the local paper to present to me at the hockey game that night.
My alter ego was 81 - I only hope I live so long!
I will live until I collect that drink you offered me.
GO Fire Ants!!!
SSG Schwartz
Heeheehee. Come on down for a game - I’ll buy you a couple to ease the pain of the loss! Did ya read that our goalie Rycroft came out of retirement?
Go Snakes!
My last two years of undergrad, I made ends meet by working in a funeral home, something that allowed me the piecemeal hours to focus on thesis I needed. One of the duties was taking calls when someone had passed, then gathering information for the obit, sending for pick up, etc.
I took a call one night from a local hospital. There had been a drowing at a lake we frequented. I knew the exact spot well, would visit it a dozen times over a summer. As the woman at the hospital began detailing his particulars, an ill feeling came over me. The deceased not only had an identical first and last name, we shared not just a birthdate but were born on the exact same day. Same birthplace, near identical weight and height, it started to take on the air of a Twilight Zone episode.
They brought him in for embalming later and I must admit it gave me the chills to see him lying there, similar builds, similar life, similar histories, everything. You couldn’t help but think there but for the grace of God go I. I’ve thought about him many times since, about the frailties of life and how while you don’t want to restrict your enjoyment through overzealous caution, neither should you proceed without a proper appreciation for the value of reasonable prudence.
Poor guy, he was only 21. In my 40’s, I look back on the tremendous amount he never got to enjoy and I hurt for him.
lieu, are you sure you are really alive? I see dead people!
I was pretty bummed out when I heard that I had been killed in Iraq (actually, not me, but someone with the same name).
When I was in high school someone with my name and about my age was killed in a car accident a few towns over. We had many calls of sympathy.
I don’t have a very common last name so I was surprised to get a call one morning back in high school from a friend’s sister checking to see if I was OK. Somebody with the same name committed suicide by jumping in front of a BART train (so same uncommon name and lived within a short distance of me).
When I worked at the newspaper, one of my jobs was editing obits – imagine my surprise when I clicked “next” and the next obit up was one with MY NAME. I checked my pulse, checked the age of the deceased, and continued working.