Living Funerals
Obviously the worst thing about your own funeral is that, being dead, you are unable to hear all the wonderful things people are saying about you or to see how broken up everyone is by your untimely demise. Lots of people (especially adolescents in their most self-pitying moods) fantasize about their funerals, but outside of the occasional literary classic such as Twain’s Tom Sawyer, hardly anyone gets to attend his own memorial service while still alive.
All that has begun to change, however, thanks in large part to Mitch Albom’s inspirational megaseller, Tuesdays with Morrie (Doubleday 1997). Near the start of that book, the title character—Albom’s terminally ill mentor, Morris Schwartz—decides to throw himself a “living funeral”:
He made some calls. He chose a date. And on a cold Sunday afternoon, he was joined in his home by a small group of friends and family…. Each of them spoke and paid tribute to my old professor. Some cried. Some laughed…. Morrie cried and laughed with them. And all the heartfelt things we never get to say to those we love, Morrie said that day. His “living funeral” was a rousing success.
Of course, living funerals aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some people regard them as overly egocentric. Others worry that the occasion might turn into a roast.
Still, in the opinion of some specialists in dying and grief, a living funeral can serve an important therapeutic function. If nothing else, as Robin O. Winter and Bruce A. Birnberg point out, it can help the dying person “avoid the social isolation so common to those with a fatal illness.” By arranging for his own living funeral, for example, Morrie let “his close friends and family know that he was willing to talk about his illness and death and that they did not have to be afraid to visit him.”
(Please Note: It is important not to confuse a living funeral, which can be a deeply meaningful and gratifying experience, with a living burial, which is to be avoided at all costs.)
The Dead Beat
Unlike, say, the Nobel Prize—or, for that matter, any other award you receive while alive—getting your obituary in the New York Times isn’t exactly the kind of honor you can bask in. Still, it’s a distinction that many people aspire to. Unfortunately, unless you’re internationally famous, there’s no guarantee that you’ll end up in the Times. According to obituaries editor Bill McDonald, the individuals who make it are those who have contributed something significant “to the wider society or some corner of it”—a fairly broad category that in recent years has included everyone from Dr. Albert Ellis, founder of an influential school of psychotherapy, to Harold von Braunhut, the guy who came up with the brainstorm of selling dehydrated brine shrimp as frolicking pet “Sea Monkeys.”
Like other major newspapers, the Times has full-time staffers who compose obituaries. Though becoming an obituary writer (“working the dead beat” in the lingo of the trade) wouldn’t seem to be the first-choice dream job for any hotshot young journalist hoping to score a Pulitzer, a number of outstanding writers have turned out obits for the Times. Indeed, some have achieved a fair degree of renown, at least among the kind of people likely to attend the Annual Great Obituary Writers’ International Conference in Las Vegas.
Alden Whitman, the paper’s chief obituary writer from 1965 to 1976, is regarded as a great literary innovator in the field, the person who pioneered the technique of interviewing major figures while they were still alive to garner information for their future obituaries. The late Robert McG. Thomas Jr. is revered among aficionados for his skill at summing up a subject’s importance, as in this classic opening from the October 9, 1995, issue: “Edward Lowe, whose accidental discovery of a product he called Kitty Litter made cats more welcome household company and created a half-billion-dollar industry, died at a hospital in Sarasota, Fla.”
More recently, Margalit Fox has become a fan favorite for her snappy obits on everyone from Anna Nicole Smith and Sidney Sheldon to such obscure but intriguing individuals as Conrad Spizz, “a tough-talking cigar-chewing artisan of smoked fish whose work was enshrined behind glass at some of New York’s best-known food shops” and Richard S. Prather, “a hugely popular mystery writer of the 1950s and ‘60s whose novels were known for their swift violence, loopy humor and astonishing number of characters with no clothes on.” It is thanks to writers like these—along with colleagues at other major dailies (like Alana Baranick of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, winner of the 2005 American Society of Newspaper Editors Best News Writing Award in the obits category)—that we are living, as journalist Marilyn Johnson puts it, in the “Golden Age of the Obituary.”
As Johnson makes clear in her improbably delightful book, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries (HarperCollins, 2006), a New York Times obituary adheres to a format as fixed as an Elizabethan sonnet. The opening sentence identifies the deceased, provides a crisp explanation of what he or she did to deserve a Times obit, and ends with the date and place of death. (“Serena Wilson, a noted dancer, teacher and choreographer who was widely credited with helping to popularize belly dancing in the United States, died last Sunday in Manhattan.”) A simple declaration of the subject’s age and place of residence at the time of death completes paragraph one. (“She was 73 and lived in Manhattan.”)
The second paragraph cites the source of the news—generally a family member, spokesperson, or some other reliable figure—and, when possible, gives the cause of death. (“The cause was a pulmonary embolism, her son, Scott, said.”) Providing this upfront information became standard practice at the Times after an embarrassing incident in December 2003 when—based on an unconfirmed story in another newspaper—the obits page mistakenly reported the death of Broadway dancer Katherine Sergava. “From that day forward,” explains Bill McDonald, “it has been ironclad policy at the Times to devote the second paragraph of every obit to answering a simple question about a death that every reader is entitled to ask: How do you know—who told you? We now insist on attribution. We will not publish an obituary until we can confirm the death.”
The announcement of the subject’s death is typically followed by what Marilyn Johnson calls the “song and dance”—“an expansive section of one or more paragraphs, an anecdote or even a full-blown scene that illustrates the turning point in the story of the subject’s life.” (“One day in the early 1950s, [her husband’s] band was booked for an engagement that required a belly dancer. Never mind that it was a Dixieland band; Mr. Wilson quickly got hold of arrangements of Middle Eastern standards like ‘Miserlou.’ His wife, drawing on her training, gamely volunteered to dance. That was the start of a fascination with belly dance on the part of both Ms. Wilson and her husband, who learned Middle Eastern drumming and often performed with his wife.”)
Next, the writer backpedals a bit to provide a straightforward chronology of the subject’s life. (“Serene Blake was born in the Bronx on Aug. 8, 1933; she changed the spelling of her first name as a young adult. As a child, she performed with her parents’ vaudeville act, Blake & Blake, which did musical and comedy numbers. She also studied with the celebrated dancer Ruth St. Denis, who was known for her sinuous, Eastern-inspired choreography.”)
Adding spice to the obit are quotes from experts, friends, and relatives that are sprinkled throughout the piece. (“Reviewing a performance by the troupe at Lincoln Center Out of Doors in 2001, the Village Voice wrote: ‘Her dancers, working those rhumba, chiftetelli, and kashlimar rhythms, showed classic Serena training—elegant carriage, willowy arms and hips that make tiny flicks like a clock’s second hand.”) The stock ending is a list of survivors. (“Ms. Wilson’s husband and son, both of Manhattan, are her only immediate survivors.”)
The vast majority of Times obits are written from scratch by the three full-time staffers. These tend to be relatively short—anywhere from two hundred to a thousand words—and are produced on extremely short notice, often within a day of the subject’s death.
In addition to these “dailies,” the paper keeps a file of t
welve hundred or so “advances”—prewritten or “draft” obituaries of major figures from the worlds of politics, art, science, sports, and so on. These run anywhere from one thousand to ten thousand words and, depending on the eminence of the person, might begin on page one. Though some are produced by the regular obits writers, most, as McDonald explains, are supplied by the wider newsroom staff or by outside authorities and freelancers. Since these “advances” are prepared years, if not decades, before the death of the subjects, they are regularly updated.
Though you have to be someone significant to land an obituary in a major metropolitan newspaper, anyone can get a mention on the obits page if his loved ones are willing to spring for a death notice—a small classified ad paid for and placed by family or friends. Death notices, which are telephoned into the paper, fall into several categories. The first is the short formal announcement, intended to notify friends, acquaintances, and business associates of the person’s death and the details of the funeral service (“SMITH—-John. On July 25. Devoted husband of Mary, father of Suzie and Tom, grandfather of Ellen, Jane, and Anna. Reposing at Gleason Funeral Home, 26 Main Street, Friday 2–5 and 7–9 P.M. Interment, St. Charles Cemetery, Saturday at 11 A.M.”).
Another common type is the so-called condolence notice, typically placed by friends and associates of the deceased. (“JOHNSON—Ellen. The partners and staff at the firm of Abel, Bartley and Crowe express profound sorrow at the death on December 2 of Ellen Johnson, beloved wife of our friend and partner Richard P. Johnson. We express our deepest sympathies to Richard and to all other members of the family”)
More elaborate death notices sometimes include such extended tributes to the deceased that they amount to miniature, family-written obituaries. (“BRONSON—Harry, on May 18. With his father Edward, he began his career building affordable homes for returning World War II veterans in the suburb of Midgeville. By 1957, the Bronson Company had constructed more than 1,200 attractive and solidly built homes. When not devoting himself to work, Harry loved to spend his time outdoors, hiking through the woods or fishing for trout. Though honored for his many contributions to his community his proudest achievement was being named ‘Sportsman of the Year’ by the Smithville Wilderness Club in 2006,” etc., etc.)
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
Marilyn Johnson’s charming, chatty book about the art and “perverse pleasures” of obituaries is a must-read for anyone interested in the subject. If you’d like to read obits by some of the journalistic titans to whom she pays tribute, check out Alden Whitman’s Come to Judgment: Diverse Notables Who Found Fame and Earned Obits in the New York Times (Viking, 1980), Robert McG. Thomas Jr.’s 52 McGs: The Best Obituaries from Legendary New York Times Reporter Robert McG. Thomas Jr. (Scribner, 2001), and Marvin Siegel’s compilation The Last Word: The New York Times Book of Obituaries and Farewells (William Morrow and Company, 1997).
Aspiring obit writers should acquaint themselves with Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers (Marion Street Press, 2005) by Alana Baranick, Jim Sheeler, and Stephen Miller, a highly informative how-to guide that includes such indispensable advice as “Rule No. 1: Make Sure They’re Dead.” A very readable scholarly work that examines shifting societal values as reflected in thousands of historical obituaries from 1818 to 1930 is Janice Hume’s Obituaries in American Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2000).
The Internet, of course, is full of information. Obituary Central (www.obitcentral.com), which bills itself as “the headquarters for finding obituaries,” provides links to many useful websites. The Pattee Library of Penn State University also features an excellent website on the topic (www.libraries.psu.edu/newsandmicroforms/obits.htm).
As part of its online “Talk to the Newsroom” column, in which various editors answer questions submitted by readers, the New York Times ran a very informative discussion of the obits department by Bill McDonald in September 2006. It’s available at www.nytimes.com/asktheeditors.
Greetings from the Grave
“Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died.” That’s the way the late great humorist Art Buchwald introduced himself on a video posted on the New York Times website the day after his death in January 2007. Released along with a traditional printed obituary, Buchwald’s “video obit” was the first in a planned series called “The Last Word,” featuring prerecorded interviews of various luminaries to be broadcast online after their deaths.
The project was the brainchild of reporter Tim Weiner, who came up with the concept of videotaping high-definition “oral histories” of “people whose deaths are likely to be Page One news.” At the time of Buchwald’s demise, ten other subjects—including one former U.S. president and a world-famous scientist (rumored to be Stephen Hawking)—had been taped for their eventual video obits.
Though you won’t receive international media coverage, you don’t have to be a Pulitzer Prize-winning author to have your very own video obituary. Thanks to the folks at My Last E-mail, that privilege is now available to anyone. For a range of fees—depending on how elaborate a tribute you wish to create for yourself—you can post anything from a simple text message to a full-fledged online memorial, complete with a ten-minute video clip. For further information, go to www.mylastemail.com.
DEATH FUN FACT
Ever wonder what people will say about you when you die? Well, if you’d been President Gerald Ford, Pope John Paul II, or Bob Hope, you would have had a chance to find out. These individuals were among a bunch of world luminaries whose draft obituaries, written in preparation for their eventual deaths, were accidentally posted online by CNN.com in April 2003 before any of them had actually passed to the Great Beyond.
According to legend, Mark Twain was also the subject of a premature newspaper obituary that supposedly led to his famous quip, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” The truth of the matter is that while Twain was visiting London in 1897, his cousin James Ross Clemens fell seriously ill. A reporter got wind of the story but mistakenly thought that it was Twain himself who was near death. This bogus news found its way to the New York Journal, which promptly reported Twain’s imminent demise. No formal obituary, however, was ever published. When Twain learned of the story, he issued a statement that read: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Much later, in re-counting the episode, he revised this not especially memorable remark to the wittier saying.
A less extravagant way to send e-mails from beyond the grave is offered by a French-based website called Après La Mort (After Death), which allows you to create messages that will be sent to the recipients of your choice once you have died. According to the home page, the idea first came to the webmaster when he was tooling around in his car one day and started thinking about a secret he’d never been able to share with a particular friend. Et voilà—the idea was born: “the possibility of being able to leave the kind of message you would not have dared to say to someone whilst alive.” Despite this titillating premise—that your postmortem e-mail will contain some deep, dark revelation, far too embarrassing to be uttered in life—you can actually leave any kind of message you want, no matter how boring. And the service is free! Just go to www.apreslamort.net.
Obit for an Obituarist
Along with comfort and joy, Christmas Day 2007 brought tidings of sadness for obituary lovers throughout the world: news of the passing of one of the titans of the genre, Hugh Massingberd, dead at age sixty of cancer. A classic English eccentric who once posed for an official photograph decked out as a Roman emperor with a garland of sausages, Massingberd gained renown as the “father of the modern British obituary” during his tenure as obituaries editor of the London Daily Telegraph from 1986 to 1994. Prior to his arrival at the newspaper, the standard obituary was (no pun intended) a deadly affair, consisting of a ponderous recitation of the subject’s honors and achievements. Massingberd revolutionized the form by offering witty and irreverent (not to say gleefully scandalous) observations about the departed, such a
s his characterization of one aristocratic expat as a man whose “chief occupations were bongo drummer, confidence trickster, brothel-keeper, drug-smuggler, and police informer.” In another obituary much cherished by cognoscenti, he described a once-renowned scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls whose crackpot theories had transformed him into a laughingstock as “the Liberace of biblical scholarship.”
To fully appreciate a Massingberd obituary, it is necessary to be conversant with his highly specialized vocabulary—with what Margalit Fox calls his “carefully coded euphemisms.” In her New York Times tribute to her colleague, Fox helpfully provides “an abridged Massingberd-English dictionary” for the benefit of American readers:
“Convivial”: habitually drunk
“Did not suffer fools gladly”: monstrously foul-tempered
“Gave colorful accounts of his exploits”: a liar
“A man of simple tastes”: a complete vulgarian
“A powerful negotiator”: a bully
“Relished the cadences of the English language”: an incorrigible windbag
“Relished physical contact”: a sadist
“An uncompromisingly direct ladies’ man”: a flasher
Though Massingberd is gone, his work lives on in The Daily Telegraph Book of Obituaries: A Celebration of Eccentric Lives (Macmillan, 1995) and five other collections, each of which—as he himself was quick to point out—makes “splendid bedtime reading.”
From Mass Grave to Memorial Park:
The Rise of the Modern Cemetery
Though the word itself derives from the ancient Greek koimeterion (meaning “sleeping place”), the cemetery as we know it today—a parklike tract of land with neatly marked individual plots—is a modern invention.
The Whole Death Catalog Page 20