March Challenge - Day 5: Finally caught up with a morbid topic: Obits

Phew, I'm back on track with my posts. Damn, reading and writing is hard (twirls blond lock of hair).

I never quite understood why papers had the obituary sections - I often wondered, who the fuck would read this morbid shit. Seriously, you'd take your time to go through the section and voyeristically look through who died recently and see who's mourning their loss. An old fashioned Death Facebook.

MacLean's magazine gives their back cover story to a reader each week who sends in an obit for a friend or family member that has recently passed. These obits are more extensive, more thoughtful and have changed my mind about obits in general.

Not only are they well-written, the words bring the individual to life, even though they are dead. More elaborate than the 100 words or less 1/64 of a page obit in the god knows what fucking section of the newspaper, these full-page stories bring a 30 year old mother of two who recently died in a freak traffic accident in BC or a 18 year old teenage boy who died on a ski slope, or an 80 year old who lived a long and rewarding life.

Death is nothing foreign to me - I've seen four close family members pass, I've seen young people die for no reason - car crashes, suicides, cancer. But I've been mostly stoic when dealing with death - very rarely showing any grief or expressions. Which is probably why I never understood obituaries - they are expressions of grief from the living trying to memorialize their departed friend or family member.

Then I realized, I've been an obit writer myself! Last year, on the 10th year anniversary of my mom's passing, I wrote a tribute to her on a Facebook note. It was long, featured photos of her throughout her life, and my musings on how she would be like if she were around now. In a sense, it really helped me cope with my loss (even though its been 10 years, it's still incredibly painful to think about). Had I done it earlier, like these people have, perhaps it would have helped with my grief process more.

While I normally never pray, I certainly hope that I will not have to write an obit for any of my friends or family anytime in the near future. However, if that day comes, I look forward to using that as an outlet of my grief, which it seems so many do, to whatever audience that wants to read.