Why I Write My Own Obituary Every Year | Hacker News Reader

Why I Write My Own Obituary Every Year

nytimes.com

53 pointsbookofjoe34 comments

I like reading (esp. Observer and Economist) and writing obituaries.

When I was working for Reuters, I saw how they have draft obituaries ready for all living celebrities, which have to be constantly updated -- until folks actually pass away. The purpose is to be able to post obituaries within seconds after a person's death.

At some point I designed an API for them to order people by the "update-worthiness" of their obitary drafts: using features like age, popularity, rate of change.

It is a healthy practice not to ignore/block out death but to make it part of one's life; society forgot that in recent decades (e.g. we no longer keep the departed at home for relatives to get used to the fact that they are no longer alive, but still be able to look at them when mourning).

> e.g. we no longer keep the departed at home for relatives to get used to the fact that they are no longer alive, but still be able to look at them when mourning

What was this practice called? It sounds interesting.

In Ireland, they are called a wake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_(ceremony)

That Wikipedia page says viewings are basically the same as a wake. Are viewings not common in the U.S? They're common in Utah.

When my dad died, before the viewing there was the period right after death where my siblings and I sat in the room with his body and talked until the mortuary picked him up.

My suspicion is that the proliferation of cremation has significantly reduced the incidence of wakes. That, and US American society has so much functional separation that most of us probably interact very little with the elderly, thus also not ending up at many funerals.

I'm from the Southeastern US. They seem pretty common here.

We have wakes and visitations in Canada too, but they are held at funeral homes for brief periods - not in the home of the deceased or a loved one. I think this might be the same as the Jewish ritual of “sitting shiva”?? But I am not sure.

I couldn't quite follow the wording, but it sounded like open-casket visitation, but at home instead of a funeral home.

Yes I agree. Was this a common ritual anytime recently in North America? I have heard of it back in the 1800s but only ever heard of funeral homes for visitations anytime more recently.

Possibly “visitation” in the American south, unless I’m misremembering or misinterpreting the parent comment.

Are visitations held inside a private home? We have them in Canada but they are invariably (in my experience) held in a funeral home.

One of my dad's oft-told stories is of having his grandmother "in the living room" overnight prior to her funeral. He didn't use a particular term for it but said he found it quite terrifying as a 4-5 year old at the time. (This would be in the 1950s in the UK.)

> draft obituaries ready for all living celebrities, which have to be constantly updated

I was responsible for doing this for a news radio network 30 years ago. Mostly I was able to stay on top of things, but Princess Diana really ruined my weekend. No-one was ready for that one.

I'm very curious to know if you had an obituary written up for Princess Diana already, or did you only have them written up for celebrities that were "at risk"?

Was there any kind of cutoff in terms of age? Were there obituaries maintained for child actors and singers? So many questions but it's a very interesting topic!

Typically, they were managed based on level of fame, health, and age.

Any notable persons named in recent news reports for matters of health were kept near the top of the pile.

There was nothing pre-prepared for Princess Diana's death as she was just too young and healthy, despite her incredible fame.

My grandfather was a newspaper journalist all his life. When he retired, he took a side-gig back with the paper updating obituaries.

When watching the updated Shōgun, I was struck by how absolutely casual everyone was, about death; both the death of others, and their own.

I assume that was a cultural trait of the time. It does not seem to be so much so, these days.

I was raised in Africa, and was quite familiar with death -frequently violent death, at an early age.

We live in privileged times, where we have the luxury of not thinking about death.

When I lived in Sierra Leone, a common Christmas carol translated to "Merry Christmas, we didn't die".

In Bulgaria walls like this one are really common. https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9D%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%BE...

For anyone interested in these, I visited Bulgaria last year and wrote about them:

https://onthearts.com/p/the-necrologs-of-bulgaria

> I also came to understand that most people outside our house could not tolerate talking much about death, especially their own.

I'm happy to see these kinds of articles show up from time to time on HN because, despite what I quoted from the article here, I do want to talk more about death and its finality, life's brevity.

These posts make their way to the front page often enough too that I am sure I am not alone.

I think the U.S., culturally, does not deal enough with the idea that we are all just sharing the stage for so a short time before exiting.

I've been atheist since I was maybe seven or so so I can't speak for people brought up with deep ties to religion — just that, for myself, the inevitability of death seems to creep in and has shaped all aspects of my life, how I have lived my life. At times I think I am grateful for it. At times I think this has allowed me to repeatedly reevaluate what is important in life when I might be otherwise spiraling into a routine of, I don't know, hedonism?

At other times though I wonder if it has not also been a burden. I wonder how I would see each day if, perhaps like a spider or something, I just was each day.

I think there's something even better you can do. Write a nice summary of other people you care about, not an obituary, but a summary of your perspective of them, and send it to them. Perhaps while they are still alive, so they can actually enjoy the nice things you think about them.

Ask yourself this: if you wrote as much nice things you could about a good friend, how much of it do you think your friend would know that you know that....perhaps less than you think. Why not summarize the nice parts of the lives of people you know and then just tell them?

It's tempting, but with my mental state as it is, if I suddenly start complimenting people, they'll ask if I'm doing okay

That is my literal answer to why I don't do it

This can't be a serious comment. Is your mental state NPD?

I'm often struck how published US obits changed during 20th century (along with regions).

Late 1800s obits were formal. They included family members and church affiliations. Cities were small industry/mercantile areas, surrounded by working farms. A few ethnicities dominated, depending on the industry and location. Local directories listed street names/landmarks, noted their death or the city they 'removed to'.

1920s obits came with more details about the decedent's lives and families. Church affiliation was inferred by funeral arrangements. Cities were larger; ethnicities clustered in neighborhoods. Local directories listed home & work name/addy, the wife's name or the spouse's name of a widow.

From 1940s to 1970s, obits became longer and included extended family, marriage dates and accomplishments (inc church). Military history became prominent in the 60s and 70s. Major cities were huge and adjacent areas were distinct places. Ethnicities were more spread out. Phone books had numbers and addresses.

In the 1980s, obit length tended to shorten to minimal details but could be longer if the decedent knew a lot of people. Families were often spread out. Cremations replaced burials.

https://archive.ph/KTKco

I update "upon my death" letters to my loved ones every year.

It's a sobering exercise that brings me great peace and, I hope, will bring them great peace too.

I really like this idea! Could you share more about your letters?

What sorts of things do you include? I assume different topics for different people. Do the loved ones know that these letters exist?

I highly recommend it!

I left instructions to my children in a safe they know about. I also keep digital copies on a flash drive in the safe.

Each letter is printed, signed and sealed in an envelope. Each has a name, title, and sometimes directions on where to send. In some cases, I don't know the current address of the recipient so I just put my best guess and hope my children can find them.

Generally I polish them and add new content based on personally meaningful changes in my life that year, or new interactions I had with the person.

In rare cases, such as the one to my ex-wife, I have rewritten the entire thing. It grows shorter each year, but I remain polite.

I also plan to record a short video for my children each year they can watch or share. Obviously I can't cover everything in it but it will be short, sweet, and probably funny. I will just keep each one year over year so they have more material to work with. I will store copies on two or three USB flash drives.

My idea for this was inspired ~10 years ago by a co-worker whose friend--a father and husband--was killed by a piece of metal debris that flew into his car windshield while he was driving on the freeway.

This past weekend I found a memorial bench dedicated to a man who died of a quick late-stage cancer, not much older than me. The motto on the plaque read: DON'T WAIT

As Yogi Berra said:

Always go to people's funerals, so they'll come to yours.

as a member of a fraternity we lose a casual friend about once a year to age and the obits put the passing in perspective. it's recognized, recorded, and then they are missed, but it's rarely traumatic of tragic. there is a moment of silence for them and maybe we do a funeral service and everyone moves on. the obits are always so much smaller than the memory of person was. it puts our own horizon in perspective. life without us everywhere continues. i used to say I wanted to make the obits in the economist, but now I'd be content to have left some of this better than I found it, like a campsite, a trail, or a relationship. brothers of the dust, as it were.

when I worked on an extremely difficult geneology project, where much of the family had absolutely no birth or death records - newspaper obits become an unbelievably accurate way to find out a person’s siblings, when they were born/died, and geographical information. Old records, especially those of african americans, were often completely incorrect, mispelled, or missing entirely - but obits don’t really ever lie.

I’d write my own but I’m afraid there’s not much to write about.

    # A tragedy has befallen all mankind

    Robert Edwin House, 261, President, CEO, and sole proprietor of the New Vegas Strip, industrialist and technologist, founder, President, and CEO of the multi-billion-dollar pre-war robotics and software corporation, RobCo Industries, has died.

    Generally recognized by Mr. House to be mankind's only hope of long-term survival, Mr. House's passing may well sound a death knell for the entire human race.

    Lost forever is his bounty of knowledge concerning human longevity, the depth and breadth of which could, as he was apt to say, "fill several text books." He was not exaggerating. Though he did not achieve his goal of functional immortality, let us not forget that he died at the age of 261. How many people do that? I mean, come on.

    Also lost forever are House's singular personality, force of will, vision, and leadership ability. The probability of an equally capable figure emerging from the current human population to lead mankind to a future of equivalent quality is less than 0.000112% by objective measures too complex to detail in this obituary.

    Personality and force of will: Born June 25th, 2020, House was orphaned at an early age when his parents died in a freak accident (auto gyro, lightning). Though cheated of his inheritance, House attended the prestigious Institute in Massachusetts and founded RobCo Industries on his 22nd birthday. Within five years, it was one of the most profitable corporations on Earth.

    Vision: By 2065, House was certain that an atomic war would soon devastate the planet. At great personal expense, he developed technologies to ensure the structural integrity of the city of Las Vegas (as it was known at the time). On the day of the great war, 77 atomic warheads targeted the city. Mr. House defeated them all. Talk about vision!

    Leadership: Mr. House survived the war, of course, and would later recruit the Three Families, negotiate the Treaty of New Vegas, and rebuild the Vegas Strip. While these achievements yielded many immediate benefits, they were all part of House's master plan to re-ignite mankind's quest for technological advancement, a plan without which the human race has nowhere to go, and nowhere to turn.

    /// Will revise and finish this up later. Have set the age at death to update automatically. Obit makes salient points but "pearls before swine," of course. Let's hope the ingrates never have cause to read it. Who knows how many of them are even literate!

Interesting documentary I watched a while back about the Obit writers at the NY Times

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obit_(film)

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