If you are reading this obituary, it looks like I'm dead | Hacker News Reader

If you are reading this obituary, it looks like I'm dead

framinghamsource.com

166 pointsmarkhall74 comments

I read a good chunk thinking this was a case of the telegram in The Master and Margarita:

"Have just been run over by tram-car at Patriarch's Ponds funeral Friday three pm come".

She sounds like a wonderful person.

Funny enough, I died in 2015. Well, I thought I was clever, I added a sort of obituary on my blog's RSS to publish only if I don't write for a whole year. In php I used strtotime(+1 year) , but for testing I tried +1 minute. I forgot to adjust and deployed. So in 2015, the top post on my RSS was that I was probably dead and someone should check on me.

I've thought about this just so someone can let my cat out of my apt

"Someone take my cat's corpse out since I've been dead for a year."

Well... I have the automatic feeder/water so he's got time but I mean say you went to jail for 90 days, if no activity in a week or a month it would notify someone you know/emergency contact/your apt complex.

I am a curious sort. Always look at bios. Came across yours, and reading your blog. Keep it going! :)

yeah hopefully I'm gonna be less of a dumbass

Yes, first thing, you must stop driving at crazy speeds. Good thing is is you already know what you need to do :)

well, your blog kind of died, i guess.

that reminds me, i still need to revive mine...

ALS is such a cruel disease. Cognitive recognition of a one way trip where all your functions shut down one by one. Highly recommend the book "I Remember Running" by Darcy Wakefield, which she wrote one finger tap at a time on her phone.

Indeed. Similarly, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, written by French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby, who had suffered a stroke with locked-in syndrome, by blinking his left eyelid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diving_Bell_and_the_Butter...

Cool way to write up an obit, sounds like the world lost a good one.

With multiple references to Dunkin' and scratch tickets in lieu of flowers, I feel like I was reading this in her accent.

My goal for the day, is to be a B+ husband. Liked that.

[flagged]

Nah, it shows he's chill and has good humor.

Eh, I think more optimistically, this is something her and her partner could joke about, and that he got a chuckle out of it.

I’m sure more heartfelt words were shared outside the scope of this obit.

He knew he was an A+ for letting her have more love at the end with the throuple. That’s class. That’s love. Bear with the swoosh for 1.5 years so your wife of 42 is happy. God he must be crushed right now.

You know that was a respirator right? It wasn't a real 'throuple'

Either I'm missing your joke, or you missed the joke in the post. The throuple was with a respirator, not another person.

I read it as rolling with her own joke and lightening the load on the B+ rating (obviously also expressed as a loving ribbing given the context around it)

This. The man was a saint till the very end.

More likely an inside joke they've had for years.

The joke is "be positive"

That's clever. I didn't even think of that. I wonder if the "'A' Wife" is also a pun/play on words?

I read it as either “he made some mistake that many people would consider unforgivable, but don’t judge a human by their worst day. We worked through it and overcame because he’s a good person at heart and I love him.”

That, or “I’m a demanding brat and you love me ”

It looks like it was an in-joke and I doubt he’d be sore about it.

Before recent grade inflation, B+ was better than mediocre.

All I know is that in my case, I wouldn't qualify myself as an A+, or even an A husband. Knowing my flaws, I'd be very pleased with a B+ score.

I loved every word of this post. But do keep in mind that flowers do make many people as happy as scratch off tickets.

Sorry to be dense, but can someone explain why this is on the front page? Obvs sad for this person, seems like she had a fun time, but that's true of millions of people. Take this as "Help me see what I'm obviously not seeing", not a complaint.

I don't understand what it is doing here either.

A perfectly fair question, and predictably but unfortunately down voted.

I think it's of interest because (1) it implicitly presents a question of how to go about a premeditated end-of-life message to be shared in an online space.

And (2) relative to typical prose in this context, it's a bit cheeky, more like an "aw, shucks" than a grand tragedy. Something about it reached across the veil of impersonality, again in a digital space. And to me at least it's raising a question of how you choose to express yourself and how that choice gives you life in the ability to be regarded and known by others, and perhaps an even more general question of how we're all already doing something like that on a day to day basis. I don't think anyone who voted on it said any of that stuff out loud but you could feel those themes as implicitly present even if it's hard to put your finger on exactly what they are.

To your point I don't think it's the only message that has questions like those behind it, but I don't think it's ever been teed up for community discussion quite like this.

As someone with ALS and won't see next year, please do not post my memoriam page to HN.

You won't be able to stop me.

Hey friend, I just lost someone close to me from Parkinson's coincidentally the same exact day as the woman in the story and just a few miles from her. If you have any servers you want to keep running for a while or any EOL tech logistics your family won't understand I'd be happy to help. I can post your memoriam page wherever it belongs. My email is in my profile.

Thank you for that incredibly kind offer. I've spent the last year or so automating everything I can. I've made peace with letting go. You spend your entire life accumulating "stuff" to only realize none of it matters.

The same reason some political posts end up in HN. Nothing to do with tech, nor startups, nor anything related to them. This page is just a curated American news outlet, with a decent comment section.

Edit: I'll obviously get downvoted for this, but that's my point of view. I'm from Europe.

Framingham is a Boston suburb. Boston is maybe a #4-5 tech hub in the US, so there are a fair number of Massachusetts folks on here for whom it'll be a local story. I've seen non-tech Boston area stories on the front page once in a while.

Also when I first saw the headline, I (incorrectly) assumed it was an auto-posted obituary and clicked to see the tech. I could see in this scary political climate, with US morality on the rise, and a few prominent new "DeathTech" startups, this audience might be curious about tech for EOL planning. Long time HNers (the ones who are more likely to vote on articles) are aging and that cohort are now in their 40s–50s and increasingly aware of their mortality as they themselves, family and friends confront challenging medical issues.

I feel bad for her family, they lost a wonderful person.

I lost my wife earlier this year. She died unexpectedly in her sleep. I wish so badly I had something like this from her. Knowing that she considered her life well lived would mean the world to me. But of course that’s not possible, or highly unlikely, when someone dies suddenly. I guess that’s the trade off for not having to see her slowly waste away from a degenerative disease, for not having all my recent memories of her set in a hospital.

But fuck, I wish I had that. This was so nice to read, and must be a great comfort to her family in the midst of devastation.

> A celebration of life will be held at The Verve Hotel, 1360 Worcester St. Natick, on Monday, September 29, 2025 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm. Please join my family to celebrate my life, have a glass of wine…some tasty nibbles… and don’t forget to bring your dancing shoes and your favorite story to share about me and my shenanigans! This is a great location for out-of-town guests to stay in a hotel as well.

I'm glad that this works for some people but in the west we have this extremely odd prejudice towards real grief. I'm convinced that it isn't healthy and not acknowledging that someone dying is extremely sad for them and their family doesn't allow for real healing.

Yep, this isn't great. Grieving people aren't in a "let's party" mood. It comes off as tone-deaf.

This just stinks of "don't ever show real emotion" US 'tough guy-ism' as it sometimes translates via women. I remember being pressured to be either fun/funny or kind/nurturing. Actual real expression, expression of sadness, depression, etc was always something I was discouraged to do or even punished for. I remember feeling weird when I went to therapy. Like "Oh wait, I can just...talk about my real emotions?"

I had a "jokey gal" persona for a long time, so maybe this hits closer to home for me, and it was a reflection of my social anxiety and unwillingness and lack of support in life to ever be vulnerable. So when I see the "jokester" persona, I always pause because it often comes from a bad place. I could even see myself doing this when I was younger. Today, I would never because the younger woman I was no longer exists and she would have done this out of fear and suffering and denial of self, not "fun."

There's a certain immature, 'won't touch one's emotions' 'Michael Scott-ism' here that's off-putting. A sort of "Fun gal in the office" energy that betrays immaturity and even insecurity. The desire to be popular and have high-social capital extends even to death it seems.

I lost a parent a while ago. I would not have appreciated a "jokey" display at all. It was the saddest day of my life and even today I still mourn. I'll never get over it.

And a sort of productivity culture-esque, "haha we had our fun, now go back to work/school," or whatever. In reality, a lot of people need time to grieve. I wish I took off more work than the 1 day bereavement I got from work and the 1 pto day I had. I was a high-key mess for at least a couple weeks, and a low-key mess for months. I would find myself crying randomly. I would have these sudden intrusive thoughts like "What does it matter, we just die in the end." It took a while to get where I am today where I have optimism about life and where I see my parent as gone forever, and without feeling pain about it.

As for cultures that have celebratory funerals, well, this isn't one of those cultures, so its not normal to expect people to conform to that. And even in those cultures there's a different more somber ceremony attached to the celebration.

That being said, maybe this was her coping mechanism, and it got her this far. Great. That worked for her. But for the grieving people, maybe "jokey gal" persona isn't the best. shrug, its not a big deal, but this being posted here as some kind of amazing and exceptional thing isn't great either. This has problems worth mentioning. I think we all think we can just 'fix things' or 'cheat the suffering of death' by being creative or different, but the human brain remains as-is. It wants to grieve and often there's no getting out of that. Loss is painful and can't just be turned into fun by will alone. I think in most cultures this would be off-putting if not offensive. On the other hand, we have to respect how people wanted to be remembered.

That being said, the stages of grief book helped me. It validated my pain and showed me a path. I hope her friends and family find what works for them. Maybe "Michael Scott-isms" worked for her, that's fine, but it definitely is not going to work for everyone. So just a reminder, there are many ways to grief, and some will do it via comedy, but its also okay to go down a traditional route or even get into therapy over it. Its also okay to cry today and laugh tomorrow and vice-versa. Sometimes I think of my parent and just chuckle at a memory. Life can be complex this way.

She seemed fun and nice. I hope the above isn't too critical, but its more for us still living. I hope she is now resting in peace. Or, as I am a Buddhist, that her karma was found a fortunate rebirth.

Last year I was invited to a "living wake". The person was still alive and looked better than some of his friends. It was basically a party. But he had advanced brain cancer and did pass a few months later. The idea of such an event was and still is highly strange to me.

I also attended one. I liked it, except for the odd way people spoke of him in the past-tense, as if he weren't, y'know, present. But I assume that was this particular crowd being weird. Probably the first person started it, and everyone after unconsciusly adopted the same language.

When he did pass, I was sad, but less sad, I think, than I would have been. It was an interesting experience.

Don’t judge how a human chooses to die. Their business only.

I dunno. I guess if I ever die I would love to have people party / celebrate / etc rather than all be sad, but it all depends on the person.

You can grieve before someone finally passes. My grandma lived well into her eighties. Her final two years were not great but we did what we could to make it better for her. When she passed it felt like a good part of feeling for her hardship has already passed, together with the relief of knowing that she is no longer suffering.

Grieving is important. To do it properly be close to those who need it. Dying is a process and not a moment. Be there for those that need it and give yourself room to do it properly as well.

I think this is true when someone dies young or unexpectedly. After a long illness though, the family has likely already done a lot of grieving, and may even be feeling something more like relief than grief.

I know my dad felt that when his father passed. I did too, but not as much as he did, because my dad was taking his dad to doctor's appointments and caring for him after surgery and generally seeing him in very vulnerable circumstances.

I just don't at all think that this is equivalent to not acknowledging that someone is dying.

Aside:

In an era of generative texts and humanity pushing the bounds of what to do with them, how does one verify the authenticity of something like this? Does it matter?

~1500 people (US) die of this per year.

Murphy seems like a neat person. I'll check out her book.

I sense a bit of AI in this obit. Most tellingly, a suspicious emdash after Chipotle is a definite flag.

The way the author describes post-death events in the past tense, non-hypothetically, indicates that someone other than Murphy had a hand in its authorship.

(Would an author really write "Check it out, it’s called “F Off Cancer” by Linda Brossi Murphy"? That's not even the title of the book!)

> (Would an author really write "Check it out, it’s called “F Off Cancer” by Linda Brossi Murphy"? That's not even the title of the book!)

Perhaps there is some moderation happening on the blog.

Maybe she liked to use AI.

There are many people, myself included, who have been using em-dashes a lot since forever. I wouldn’t consider it a “definite flag”, the letter itself feels authentic.

She could well have written in third person. She was watching herself dying slowly, separating further and further from her life. If it felt like I was already dead towards the end, I might just run with it when writing my life story. Just leave a few fill-in-the-blanks for details like the date and ceremony details for hubby to fill in.

The title is close enough. Censored, missed a comma and skipped the secondary title. Very human choices and mistakes. Not sure why we'd expect a dying loving woman to be hyper focused on getting the title of her book right.

> Most tellingly, a suspicious emdash after Chipotle is a definite flag.

Good writers have been using em dashes for years -- that's why AIs keep using them. :)

Also, MS Word auto-corrects <space>-<space> into an em-dash just like it fixes quotes. Depending on which software was used to write it, it's very likely that's what happened.

I'm never suspicious of only one em-dash, as they are a perfectly valid, if infrequent punctuation. Three or more in an article this length would make start looking at the rest of it more closely, though.

truth. Knew her and loved her. This was Linda. Mind you ALS is a long brutal disease. She wrote this. I’ll swear to it. Zero AI. The chipotle thing? Couldn’t be more true. You are dead wrong. Sorry.

Did she really write a book called "Fuck off, Cancer", only to then go around describing the book as “F Off Cancer, by Linda Brossi Murphy"? I don't think a published author would step back from her own boldness that way, or awkwardly insert her own name like this. This is the hand of someone else, a less skilled writer.

I wonder if she helped them write it or if it was done by her alone before it progressed far enough that she couldn't anymore, or if they just did it for her with advice from her family?

She wrote this. From her heart. I promise you.

How did the obituary know the date of death? Did she have a surgery that she did not survive?

edit: the funeral home published this

previous comment: could have been programmed as `Time.now - 1.day` to be published if no action was taken on the day of

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_man%27s_switch

It is very tricky though. You probably want to have a bunch of fail-safes in place.

Yeah there's no way it's worth it for an obituary. You need it out in good time, so you can't have a delay longer than a few days. But it's definitely possible to be knocked out (or in a no-signal zone) for a few days and survive.

This being HN, let me say it could work as a service where the service (a human) would check if you are still alive after a timeout.

Uh. yeah. Can you imagine her dragging herself up and reaching for a keyboard - "I'm ... not ... dead ... yet". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfOW9QrLs0o

I think this was a planned post she wrote while dealing with her disease, and likely a family member added in some relevant details and posted it. I've had a few terminally ill family friends that want to reclaim some control in death what life had taken from them, so they plan their funeral and some post death things out ahead of time.

Am I wrong or does it just look like a funeral home posted this for her? Likely filled in a few data points as requested?

NOPE. Linda’s personal words.

Presumably she wrote it as "when I died on <insert day of death>"

This question is so absurd. The obit was written prior to her passing. It was obviously filled in by a family member. 100 truth

Presumably that also means there's no one to bring the server back up.

I know it feels like everyone is in tech, but, in fact, there's no evidence for that here:

After I graduated, I had a brief stint as a Nursing Home Administrator until David Jr. was born, then stayed home and hatched a couple more pups over the next few years. In 2000, I formally joined the family real estate business and worked there until I was diagnosed… with ALS (I kept working through my long battle with cancer 12 years ago) … Yikes!! Cancer…THEN ALS. Ugh, Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up! I am very proud of the book I wrote about my journey through cancer. Check it out, it’s called “F Off Cancer” by Linda Brossi Murphy.

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