At my dining room table. With a real, printed newspaper.
I do it every day.
Many skip over this section, as it clearly presents an existential crisis, or can seem ghoulish. Yet, it’s the one sliver of the LA Times that consistently delivers the gentle joy of the human spirit.
And that spirit is what empowers me to start my own day of writing.
Yes, joy feels contrary to what is expected from an obituary section, because our relationship with death is complicated. Yet, there is a celebration in those precious words that is missing from the “If it bleeds, it ledes,” mentality of the rest of the paper.
Actually, from much of journalism these days.
In those ten minutes of my morning, I feel a deep sense of human connection as I read a brief history of someone’s life. Through these words, I have met gallant people who have endured wars, discovered cures, bravely paved the way for others, and dedicated their lives to helping those around them.
I’ve met regular people who were deeply loved, did crossword puzzles in pen and lived a simple life focused on the things that mattered most to them.
And that settles my soul. Especially when the world is spinning too fast for me.
Obituaries are a lesson in brevity, recounting the impact the person has made. Having to condense someone’s rich life into 100 words is a deeply personal and difficult process, especially through the cloudy lens of grief. But it does allow that needed space for personal healing and creates a collective mission to assemble on paper a life well lived. In that, I see the writer as much as I see the person they are writing about. Their choices. Their love.
The process of writing an obituary provides respite and a way to process the loss. For those moments of reflection they are remembering the joy, rather than mourning the finality of the moment.
So don’t be afraid of obituaries. Rise above the fear and reframe what they represent. They teach us about amazing, everyday people who don’t always make the headlines, but deserve our attention.
Reading them keeps us connected to our past, and also helps us come to terms with our own relationship with the afterlife. In doing so, we can look to strangers to help us celebrate the big and small moments, that make life such a gift.
