Obituaries are (infuriatingly) forever
and I hate it
Eric's obituary is one of many things I wish I could do over. I barely remember writing it. Eric died on a Thursday night and I think I had to bring a copy of his obituary to a meeting with the mortuary Monday morning---I don't remember exactly; that entire season of my life is a sick-making smear of angry colors across a black canvas.
- Kristina Mahr (aff link, her book of poems is excellent)
I typed it up in Word, printed it out, and then, at the funeral home, had to read it out loud in front of Eric's parents. I'm surprised they didn't request a complete rewrite, to be honest. I can close my eyes and see us, perched on those uncomfortable sofas, bags under our eyes, shock still slapped fresh across our faces. Unreal. Impossible. All of it.
Long after the obituary was published, I noticed a redundancy I itched to edit, tweak, and fix. I couldn't, because it wasn't a blog post or an Instagram caption. It wasn't mine anymore.
Eric Richard Wiseman, age 46, died suddenly and unexpectedly in his home in Rigby, Idaho on Thursday, November 26, 2020, after a sudden and tragic respiratory arrest.
Suddenly! Unexpectedly! Sudden!
These stupid words wormed their way into my brain like a particularly sharp pebble in a shoe. Only I couldn't kick off the sandals and claw it out. I just had to keep walking, the rock pinching and rubbing my skin raw.
Listen, I know it's fine. I'll just say that up front. You don't need to hit reply and tell me that it's fine. I know it's fine. But this is not about fine. This is about the towering list of very important and immediate decisions you have to make after someone dies in America and the shocking irreversible permanency of some of those decisions.
There is no time to breathe, to adjust, to cope. I was made to pen something that will stand as the monument to Eric's entire life, something that is archived across the internet on countless sites, and is memorialized in his ancestry and genealogical record. It is as forever as anything temporal ever is.
And no one really tells you this or explains it. It's just, "Bring us the obituary when we meet." No guidelines, no plan, no outline. No time.
Months later when some of the dust was settling over our newly ravaged landscape, I'd find myself muttering in the shower, scrubbing my hair with shampoo while foam ran into my eyes, "Sudden is already implied in the word unexpected, Jessicahh."
And then I'd cry, ending up, as I often did, curled up on the shower floor until my fingers and toes looked like raisins and the hot water ran cold. I was angry we hadn't spent more time planning our own deaths. I was angry he once pointed at a family photo from 2006 and said, "Use that picture of me in my obituary" not knowing how difficult it would be to scan it in or figure out how to crop out our daughter on his lap without leaving her swoop of blonde hair overlapping his chin like a bleached beard; not knowing I wouldn't have the time, energy or wherewithal to even try.
I don't hate the whole thing. It felt silly to add in the bit about his love of animals, but I'm glad I did. And despite a lot of unspoken cultural pressure, I'm also glad I adhered to his wishes not to write it like a "religious resume."
(In our culture it's really common in obituaries to mention their faith, how active they were at church, and include a list of all their church callings, especially if they served in 'higher' positions like bishoprics and stake presidencies. Often, this theme carries over to the actual funeral and you don't get to hear a lot of personal stories, just 'proof' of their goodness & worthiness---Eric didn't want any of that.)
When it's just me and the kids talking on the patio, no one brings up his 'example' or his church service, and we certainly don't define his life by comparing him to a completely different being (eg: "Christlike"). He, all by himself, was enough for us---more than enough. We don't need to qualify his existence by holding him up to external yardsticks---it feels completely unnatural to even try.
Eric was a wonderful man, and it wasn't because he was berating himself for falling short of a set of arbitrary rules and it wasn't because he was constantly striving to improve or become more godly. He was just a genuinely loving, good-natured person who valued us for who we were, wherever we were on our paths through life. He loved us completely and wholly and without requirement. It's who he was.
We talk about the things he loved, his sense of humor, the sound of his laugh, his amazing singing voice. We talk about how he could fix and repair anything, how he made us feel safe at night, how much time he spent with all of us, how lucky we were to have him home most of the time. We talk about his favorite shows and video games and how much he would have loved the new Spiderverse movie or the new Zelda release.
If church ever comes up we talk about how great he was with kids, how much he loved teaching Primary (the little kid classes), and how much he hated neckties and how he'd (somewhat rebelliously) leave the top button beneath the knot undone. No one is ever like, "Oh isn't it great he was a High Priest Group Leader? Wasn't it cool how he couldn't sit with us for three years because he was in the Bishopric?"
Anyway, even if I could hack my way into the internet and delete or edit his obituary, it wouldn't make me feel any better; it wouldn't bring him back (because let's be honest, that's all I really want to fix).
Here's part of a running list I keep in my Notes app. I think if everyone just posted lists like this instead of obituary resumes, the world would be just a little bit better.
He loved:
- Us
- Family
- His pets
- Weekly dates with me (they were a high priority for him)
- Playing basketball or baseball with his kids
- Supporting the kids in whatever (showing up for every performance, every game, every art show, ever recital)
- Kids in general (he was SO good with them; he would have made a fantastic school teacher of literally any age group)
- Chocolate milk
- Donuts
- Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul
- The Office
- Parks & Rec
- Arrested Development
- The movie Armageddon
- Rom com movies
- Reality TV (sometimes, the more awful, the better): Survivor, The Bachelor, Rock of Love, Flavor Flav, Temptation Island, Alone, Man vs. Wild… He would have LOVED Love is Blind.
- Musicals (Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Into the Woods, The Greatest Showman, Hamilton).
- Movies with lots of musical numbers (Disney cartoons + the live remakes as long as they kept the music, Mamma Mia, A Star is Born, Yesterday)
- Musical biopics (Bohemian Rhapsody, Walk the Line) and any documentaries on musicians/singers.
- The Utah Jazz (love hate relationship... he was a fair weather fan that got furious and left games or turned off the TV if they weren’t doing well---always made me laugh, especially if they came back and won in the end)
- Lurking on sports forums but never creating an account or posting
- Scenic drives with me
- Taking his family + dogs to the lake or the river
- Looking at floor plans with me & getting excited when I customized them in Photoshop or on Floorplanner.com
- Walking through houses being built or houses for sale with me
- Dreaming of owning some rental properties someday
- Talking about where he’d take me when we finally took that trip to Italy and what we'd eat
- Thinking up solutions to problems
- Teaching himself how to fix cars or air conditioning, how to wire a house for electricity, plumbing... whatever needed to be done.
- Naps
- Also “naps” which were really just shenanigans with me
- Whenever I texted him a string of suggestive emojis (he'd come in from the shop immediately)
- Family game nights
- All kinds of music: country, alt rock, big band 'swing' music, classic rock, oldies...
- Playing “name the artist” with me to help me fill my music history holes (I wasn’t allowed to listen to popular music growing up and never went to any concerts or bought any tapes)
- Family parties, especially parties with food
- Reading books & teaching classes about macro and micro economics
- Debating politics
- Running his own businesses
- Thanksgiving dinner (his favorite holiday—it REALLY sucks that he died on Thanksgiving)
- Going to bed early
Disclaimers and advice
Hey, everybody grieves differently. If including a laundry list of church activity and leadership accomplishments in your loved-one's obituary makes you feel better or brings you peace (or if it's what they would have wanted), you do you (or them). I ain't judging nobody's obituaries; I can't even read them anymore, just like I can't hit the like button on your super fun anniversary trip with your alive husband. (I'm happy for you & wouldn't wish this trauma on anyone, but I HATE your photos and your trip and your life and your alive husband. Sorry, not sorry.) This is just me processing my own shitshow and some of the regrets and fixations I have surrounding the hella raw days right after Eric died.
Be a dear and handle some of this so your loved ones don't have to. Write your own obituary (mine is funny). Choose your desired obituary photo. Write your funeral (or non-funeral) wishes down so your loved ones aren't fighting about what you would have wanted. TALK about this stuff with your significant other, your children, or anyone else who might have to make a hundred million terrible-awful decisions in the wake of your sudden(!) and unexpected(!) death (or even after your long drawn out demise after an illness, because who is thinking about funerals and wills and obituaries while trying to help someone fight for their life?)
If this feels overwhelming or you don't know where to start, try the Get Your Shit Together website. It has lots of very helpful checklists you can go through to make decisions about how things are going to go after you kick the bucket. Don't let the name detract you, she has excellent advice. Her book is very good also (AFF link).
Literally any little thing you can do as far as planning this stuff and making decisions beforehand will save your surviving loves a LOT of hassle, headache, and emotional turmoil.
xo.
p.s. This post took me a hundred years and I cut out so much I have entire drafts for five other newsletters. I probably won't send a premium newsletter this weekend (since I let some of my taboo church baggage bleed into this one, oops) unless I need a distraction tomorrow. We are going to our best to ignore the holiday. See you on the flip side.