A New Yorker cartoon shows a man reading the obituaries page of a newspaper. The headlines read: “Twelve Years Older Than You,” “Three Years Your Junior,” “Exactly Your Age,” etc.
Now that I’ve reached a certain milestone in life, you could say that the cartoon is a bit more relevant to me than it was when it was published almost thirty years ago. But even then it struck a chord.
I’ve always been a reader of obituaries — and a saver of them too. Somewhere up in the loft in our garage is a large box full of them that needs to be purged, but there are files here and there in the house with still more (along with funeral programs and cards), about people I knew or whose stories I found fascinating.
Many of the obituaries are from the New York Times, chronicling the lives of the famous, the infamous, and many people I have never heard of before (which are often the most fascinating, because they have done something truly noteworthy to merit the attention but they never became household names). Obituaries in the Times are usually the most thorough, interesting, and well researched that you will find anywhere — and therefore are generally viewed as the obituaries “of record.” Many of them are prepared in advance so they only need to be modified in minor ways when that fateful day arrives. (One obituary writer recently retired and left behind drafts for 250 people.)
Some make the front page of the printed edition — a few are even “above the fold,” the person so prominent in life that their death is deemed to be among the top two or three stories of the day. The rest of the obituaries (typically less than five of them) are further back in the paper.
A good obituary provides basic facts while animating the story of a person’s life. That means reporting their troubles as well as their triumphs, and not just the biographical facts but the context and implications of them. For example, even a short death notice seen elsewhere usually offers the names of the parents of the deceased. A Times obituary includes the circumstances of those parents’ lives, which often have an important impact on their child’s development. Those kinds of details can be a revealing part of the story.
The people profiled come from different realms and eras; the ones I most closely read about are those who match my interests. In the last few days, for example, there were some music-related obituaries, including one for Alice Brock, who owned the restaurant in Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” and helped write some of the lyrics. Ironically, the restaurant had closed by the time the song came out and became a Thanksgiving-themed staple for some folks.
I was surprised to see Pete Sinfield get as much coverage as he did, since he was not really a household name. He called himself the “pet hippie” of King Crimson and wrote the lyrics for the band’s first four albums, a key figure in the genesis of the progressive rock of my youth. Upon learning of his passing, I listened to my 1973 copy of his solo album, Still, which includes a phrase that has always stuck with me: “Still, I wonder why I wonder why I’m here.”
The great jazz drummer Roy Haynes died at 99. One picture in the paper illustrated his importance — the other members of the quartet he is playing with are Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Charles Mingus. Three of the most creative and best musicians of any time or genre. Oh, to have been in that room.
The juxtaposition of obituaries can show just how disparate the paths to recognition can be. A week ago there were two featured; the headlines:
Jim Abrahams, 80, a Mastermind of “Airplane” and “Naked Gun” Dies
Robert Dixon, 103, Last Surviving Buffalo Soldier and West Point Instructor
I hadn’t heard of either one. But, like so many others, they illustrate the theme of a short article, “Why kids should read obituaries.” To set up his point, the author references Doris Allen, who was “a newspaper editor, a prisoner of war interrogator, a private investigator, a clinical psychologist, and a trumpeter.” Plus, she predicted the Tet Offensive, almost to the hour (but no one listened). The author’s conclusion:
Every single day there are informative articles about interesting people from whom we can draw inspiration. It would be a shame for us, especially our youth, to miss their acquaintance. After all, we can tell our kids that life is full of possibility, or we can let remarkable people like Doris Allen show them. Reading obituaries is a lifelong habit worth developing early.
One last example from the Times is about “the girl who saved Paris.” Here’s how it opens:
Madeleine Riffaud, a French Resistance hero who survived three weeks of torture as a teenager and who went on to celebrate her 20th birthday by helping to capture 80 Nazis on an armored supply train, died on Nov. 6 at her home in Paris. She was 100.
Amazing.
My reading of obituaries doesn’t stop with the Times. Each day I look at the Minnesota Star Tribune too. Most days there are relatively few obituaries but there’s a whole section of them on Sunday, usually around 150. No, I don’t read them all, but I scan the names, looking for familiar ones.
I find myself taking a big breath when I open that section — not on purpose, it’s just instinct at this point, maybe some kind of trepidation. Not every week, but often enough, there is someone I knew to some extent and in some cases very well. Those always bring waves of memory — and usually pangs of regret for the passage of time and dropped connections.
The obituaries, written by family members instead of journalists, vary in length and style, some very short and to the point while others can be voluminous (you pay by the word, so there’s an economic factor involved in who gets the most ink) and entertaining. I often read a few at random for a sense of the path of some lives other than mine.
At times the obituaries have even been written by the deceased. I, too, am tempted to have the last word, especially given precedents like that of a Minnesota woman, whose children wrote an obituary that went viral around the world. Their conclusion was that “this world is a better place without her.” Ouch.
One other feature in the Star Tribune is a short “In Memoriam” section for people who want to recognize those they have lost before. Thirty-year-old Bill Johnson died in 1994. Every year since, his picture and a short message have appeared on both his birthday and the day of his death, less than three weeks apart in the spring. That dedication reminds me of what Patti Smith wrote on the November 22 page of A Book of Days, below a picture of John F. Kennedy: “I was sixteen and it was the saddest day of my life. Now I am thankful that I am still here to accept the blessed task of remembrance.”
There’s one final place where I regularly read the obituaries, the Rock County Star-Herald, our hometown paper. Almost every week there is someone that I have known well — classmates and those in nearby grades, teachers, family friends, parishioners, business people. Events and feelings that I had forgotten about come rushing back.
You’d think that in a town of less than five thousand you’d know everything about those closest to you, but there are often blanks filled in when reading their obituaries. One of the most common discoveries is finding out that a person is closely related to someone else who I also knew — and I had no idea. It seems like the kind of thing that should have been obvious.
With Facebook and texting, I’m usually aware when someone has passed before I get the paper, unless they moved away and haven’t been in touch with anyone for years. But occasionally I’m blindsided, as I was this summer when I read about the death of a close boyhood friend. I wrote earlier about an encounter with him at an all-school reunion two years ago. Seeing him for the first time in decades and having a long talk was a special moment for me. When I saw his name in the obituaries, the paper fell to my lap and I felt an incredible sadness. That obituary didn’t fit into the informative, interesting, and inspirational category; it was just devastating.
When the ties that bind are involved, an obituary becomes an emotional vessel, and we are given a responsibility: the blessed task of remembrance.