Sad but Loving
How to write an obituary, yours, or someone else’s
This is a sensitive subject and often a terrifying one. Because writing an obit — whether your own or someone else’s — can be a deeply emotional thing to do. And it means facing a task many of us do not want to do — that is, we have to acknowledge a death, a loss.
We will cover:
· How to write your obituary
· How to write someone else’s death notice
· Conventions in obituary form
· Cause of death
· How to publish an obituary
But let’s see if we can have some smiles along the way.
So let’s start with the obituary of a man with a sense of humor.
Walter Bruhl Jr. was 80 years old when he passed away in 2014, but before he left, he made sure he was going to have the last laugh. Walter wrote his obituary complete with fill-in-the-blank spaces for the date and location of his death as well as a few jokes.
“There will be no viewing,” Walter wrote, “since his wife refuses to honor his request to have him standing in the corner of the room with a glass of Jack Daniels in his hand so he would appear natural to visitors.”
I read the obituaries in the San Francisco Chronicle every Sunday. And I read the obituaries of notable people in the New York Times every day.
Why do I do this? Well for one — I want to keep apprised of who else has left this time-space reality that we shared until recently. Maybe a friend of mine? A relative?
Also, I have an interest in history and some people’s obits are just too rich to ignore.
And of course, there is always the schadenfreude satisfaction of reading of someone younger than me while I am still here. For the moment anyway.
Let me offer two excerpts from a couple that I found remarkable recently. On Friday, April 16, the San Francisco Chronicle published the notice of the death of Sajida Al Bahrani reads:
Fell asleep April 10, 2016.
Dear Mum, yesterday morning on my way to the coffee shop, a mourning Dove — spelled MOURNING — — stopped me at Third Street. I replied back to the dove and all of a sudden, a vibrating message came on my mobile phone. I guess that was your last breath at 8:06 AM San Francisco local time. It took you two seconds to move from Amman, Jordan to San Francisco. Fascinating indeed.
I guess you have different ways of traveling. I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you. I feel empty and lost in the strange world. Just the thought you were there, and I was able to call every Friday — this was reassuring it’s going to take double the challenge to face every day without you. May you rest in peace.
Here’s another May 15.
Stephen Charles CARNIGLIA, January 15, 1922 to May 5, 2016.
Steve was a deeply honorable and loving man. When his wife Phoebe asked to promise to outlive her, he quickly agreed. And so, after watching her decline from Alzheimer’s disease for over more than 10 years — he died in his sleep just four days after her death. He kept his promise and made it a love story through almost 69 years of marriage.
Then on the same page, on the column next to his is the obituary of Phoebe CARNIGLIA who passed away on May 1, four days before Stephen on May 5.
Not all obituaries are as moving, but I hold these up as models.
You may have many fears in confronting this task. Perhaps wondering if you are doing justice to the deceased person you are describing. Perhaps a family member will be offended or feel left out of your text. You may wonder: What if I miss some of the important things that the deceased would have wanted known about him or her?
But you are reading this, so I know you are going to face it. And if you are writing your own or writing someone else’s, I strongly suggest that you arm yourself with a glass of wine when you’re writing it. And a lot of chocolate.
First of all, what is an obituary or an obit? It’s the announcement of an individual’s death and usually includes a description of the person’s life and a list of family members.
Here are two different scenarios.
Writing your own obit
You are producing a kind of a mini-autobiography combined with acknowledgments of those who were important to you. Whom do you want to thank?
You can write according to your whim, including the highs and lows of your life, your education, your career, your marriage, your philosophy. Do not think of it as your resume. Rather, think of it as a chance to illustrate how you want people to remember you. Your recollections, some anecdotes, even humor. Pass on the jokes you love to tell. Don’t let those one-liners die with you. Maybe include a list of your favorite cat and dog websites, poems, or pieces of wisdom that you to pass on to loved ones. Grandma’s secret sauce is finally revealed here.
Can you brag? This is a time and place to do it. But in your bragging, do not think of this as an exercise in selfishness. On the contrary, you are relieving your next of kin of the burden of doing this themselves when they’re missing you and busy arranging for your interment.
If you haven’t or don’t want to write your memoir or autobiography, then this may be your best chance to tell the world how you felt about existing in this time-space reality on this planet.
Finally, in writing it, you have the opportunity to tell the world your take on your own life. What were the turning points, the debts of gratitude you owe to others? Whom in your life did you want to appreciate publicly?
If you are writing your death notice, you will not know two things people who read your obituary will want to know:
You will not know when you died and how. Unless you are incredibly psychic.
And you will have to ask yourself, “to whom can I entrust this document who will outlive me and who will assure me they will publish it?”
Will you give them the money they will need to publish in your local paper? Or have you made some other arrangements?
You can write whatever you want, as long as you can pay for the cost entailed in the length of your material. We’ll get into the costs later.
Writing someone else’s obituary
Now the second scenario is writing someone else’s obituary. If you are writing another person’s death notice, expect to be under stress. This may be the time for a family conference. You are advised to ask your family for their input. Do not forget the wine and the chocolate.
First, there are no rules in writing an obit but there are conventions.
1: the complete name of the deceased including any initials he or she used and any nicknames. Do not forget to include the woman’s maiden name.
2: the dates of birth and death, if you use merely the years, that would be acceptable. Though I prefer the entire date,
3: the deceased’s birthplace, the names of their parents. Even their parents’ birthplaces. That is important to the children of immigrants.
4: the names of their survivors. Some people include the names of grandchildren and the spouses of children.
Insofar as naming survivors, this can be a delicate subject. Either you restrict the names of people you list to just the immediate family — or name them all — that is all the children and their spouses, all the grandchildren, etc., and the same for all the half-siblings and step-relatives.
In the interests of family harmony, it is important to get your family’s input on how many people you want to mention, balancing this list with the cost of placing an article in the newspaper. You do not want to offend anybody by omitting their name. If there are estranged family members from divorce and remarriage, there can be a long list of relatives created by stepchildren.
Whom do you want to acknowledge as having loved or supported the decedent? This includes not only family but possibly colleagues, caregivers and doctors, and nurses. Maybe clergy or hospice workers.
The cause of death
People who read obits want to know. Whether the reader knows the deceased or not, the cause of death is always an item of interest to them. It is up to you.
Sometimes if the cause of death is not mentioned, the reader will drop to the end of the obit to see what charity or disease the family wants to acknowledge, and the reader may get an idea from that.
But again, this is a delicate family issue, and it is up to you.
Suicide
If you say, Uncle Albert “died unexpectedly,” that phrase is often a euphemism for suicide.
Here’s an example also from the April 15, death notice of Spencer McCrae Baker.
Spencer McCrae Baker was born on September 7, 1990, in San Francisco died unexpectedly at home on March 31, 2016. He was only 26 years old.
It goes on to talk about his productive and happy life. Towards the bottom of the notice, it says:
Spencer’s life was cut way too short. Be at peace. Your painful struggle is finally over.
So you see this could be read either as an illness or a suicide.
If you don’t want to use the term “died unexpectedly”, because the death while unexpected, was not a suicide, you may want to say something else like injured on the job or expired tragically on vacation.
On the other hand, if the deceased person indeed took his own life, it is understandable that you may want to repress that information. But let me say this — the number of suicides has risen so dramatically that just mentioning that Uncle Albert took his own life might be helpful to somebody. Somebody who is having suicidal thoughts may feel less isolated reading this information. You might even request donations be made to the local suicide help center.
In any obituary
End with the date, time, and location of services — visitation, rosary, funeral, shiva, and/or burial or gravesite service. If memorials will be held at a future date, explain how interested parties can find out when and where.
If you want to publish instructions about anticipated donations, know that any donations must be for a charitable organization, or a trust set up at a financial institution. Newspapers will not publish requests for donations to an individual.
Always re-read your copy. I find so many errors of grammar in obits. Make sure you are spelling everybody’s name correctly.
Publishing your obituary
Understand if you want to publish in a newspaper, every newspaper uses obituaries as a source of income just like any other advertising. And the prices have risen steeply. When I put my mother’s obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001 with a small photo — it was only about 6 inches long and it cost me about $350.
Check your newspaper’s current charges per line and for a photo.
The Chronicle recently (2020) told me that the average obituary costs, not including the photo, about $900. But if you use their self-service placement on their website, you may get a 5% discount. You should submit to the Chronicle before noon at least a day before publication.
With whatever newspaper you publish, find out their deadlines,
For more information and guidelines on personalizing an obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle, click here.
Fax: 415–348–3080
Email: inmemory@sfchronicle.com
Mail to: In Memory
San Francisco Chronicle
901 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
When you submit:
Please provide your name, address, phone number, and the name and city of the funeral home or cremation society. This is for verification purposes only. Omission of any of this information will delay publication.
If you’re relying on your mortuary to send your obituary to your newspaper, I would question your mortuary on how much they’re going to charge you for a service that you can do it yourself by dealing directly with the newspaper through its website. Some funeral homes charge the family a service fee for this.
But funeral homes should not charge the family anything for including the obituary on their website including a photograph.
All the newspapers in the bay area — except for the Chronicle — are in a chain called The Bay Area Newsgroup.
If you’re going to publish in any of these papers, I suggest you go to the website www.Bayareaobits.com and see that each of these papers has a different rate and they charge private parties more than they charge funeral homes.
These papers include:
San Jose Mercury News, San Mateo County Times; Marin Independent Journal;- Santa Cruz Sentinel; Alameda Journal; the Montclarion; the Oakland Tribune, Hayward Daily Review, and Fremont Argus. As well as several weekly newspapers in Silicon Valley.
Again, you’ll find this at www.bayareaobits.com and you’ll have to drill down to the page called pricing.
Do you still need help writing your obituary? Several websites purport to help you write your obituary. They offer examples and templates.
However, your funeral home and your newspaper will have plenty of information supporting you on their own websites.
Now let’s end with a smile:
Norma Rae Flicker Brewer, a resident of Fairfield, passed away while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro,” read the death notice in the Connecticut Post. “She never realized her life goal of reaching the summit but made it to the base camp. Her daughter, Donna, her dog, Mia, and her cats, came along at the last minute. There is suspicion that Mrs. Brewer died from hypothermia, after the dog Mia ate Mrs. Brewer’s warm winter boots and socks.
While this notice did not fool anyone about the depth of the tragedy it did remind Brewer’s loved ones of her fondness for pranks and her sense of humor.
I would be happy to write your or your family’s obituaries.
francine@francinebrevetti.com
