Obituaries - what are they good for?

A recent episode of the hit television drama House M.D. related an argument between the chief protagonist Dr Gregory House and one of his terminally ill patients. The latter pleaded to be allowed to end her life with "a little dignity".

After several feeble attempts at reasoning with her, Dr House screamed,

"There's no such thing! Our bodies break down, sometimes when we're ninety, sometimes before we're even born, but it always happens and there's never any dignity in it! I don't care if you can walk, see, wipe your own ass... it's always ugly, always! You can live with dignity; you can't die with it"!

James Sheeler, author of Obit – Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People who led Extraordinary Lives would most certainly agree.

This is a book of obituaries of people most of us haven't heard of. But that doesn't mean these people are nobodies.

The book is fascinating, educational, funny, insightful, and non-judgmental. It is rarely sad. A collection of forty-two obituaries that brings to life the recently deceased. Many of the lives visited are mundane, some comic and some tragic. All are well lived and every story reveals a focus on fulfilling one's time on earth.

Jim Sheeler, a Pulitzer Prize recipient and journalist at Denver's Rocky Mountain News penned these obituaries between 1996 and 2006 (just three years before the paper was shut down).

Obit is oddly enjoyable and fascinating. It may sound a strange book to read, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Even if you are not a fan of obituaries (and I for one am not a fan of anything remotely connected to death), you could enjoy this book from both an educational and linguistic perspective.

Sheeler's style can be described as 'spare'. In the main, he employs short sentences; eschews adjectives and adverbs as much as possible and instead uses concrete nouns and verbs. He cuts through to the essence of the deceased by quoting close friends and relatives and allowing their few words to tell the story. He utters few if any comments. Like a very good journalist, he reports and you, the reader, decide.

Each obituary is three to six pages long and the obits are listed in no particular order. The table of contents hints at the nature of the relevant obit: plane crash; teacher; cowboy etc, but hint is all it does, and vaguely so.

The many obits are similar in length and theme (they offer either a snapshot of a person's life or personality), but some differ in tone. They are however united in purpose: to relentlessly extol the sanctity of a life lived with purpose.

The obituaries in the book include people from all walks of life, children as well as adults. Most of the obituaries are not so much about the individual person and his or her life story, but more about what their life meant to the world in which they lived.

What makes these obituaries such a pleasure to read is the style in which they are written. The author chooses a couple of events or personality traits that best exemplify the luck, kindness, good fortune, special gift, hardship or civic mindedness of the recently departed and situates those attributes in the context of the person's community, focusing on either personal friendships or professional accomplishments.

This is not a book to be rushed, but a book to be relished. You need not read it cover to cover in one sitting. In fact you must not, lest you minimize its worth. It is ideal for picking up and putting down at will. Consider reading a couple of obits on a lazy Saturday afternoon, before venturing out on the town with friends. You may well see your friends in a new light.

While its subject is indeed death, its style is celebratory. If you previously viewed death as the depressive finality of life and a deep pit of grief and melancholy, from which it's hard to climb, you may very well change your outlook. For the better.

From the obituary of Jonathan Richardson (shoe shine worker, dead at 74): In the context of his reaction to joining civil rights marches in Selma, Alabama:" When someone puts you down, you just smile at them, and that makes them wonder what you're thinking. You just smile at them and walk away".

From the obituary of Aimee Joan Grunberger (mother, teacher and poet, dead at 44 from complications related to breast cancer): "From where she sat in her study, she could see through the town. She saw the pettiness and the politics. She saw the people hurrying around and the squabbles. "These people need cancer," Aimee Grunberger said. "These people need cancer, not enough to kill them, just enough to make them see what's important". It was something she wouldn't wish on anyone. To a degree, it was something she would wish on everyone".

From the obituary of Carolyn Jaffe (co-founder of Hospice of Metro Denver and a nurse): "The man lay on the couch, waiting for the tiny, white haired woman who would appear whenever he needed her throughout the last months of his life".

Before saying a word, Carolyn Jaffe walked to the patient and dropped to her knees.

"It was so symbolic and so appropriate," said Janelle McCallum-Orozco, a nurse who once accompanied Jaffe to her patients' homes. "We talked about it later and she said, "That's the most important thing. You should never stand over someone. You should get down to their level".

It was a scene Jaffe repeated 624 times, for each of her terminally ill patients she would care for in her more than twenty years (of service as a nurse).

This book succeeds in memorialising the many deeds of ordinary people by telling the public of one or many small but salient episodes of a life that are emblematic of a person's selfless input into his or her society or family.

If nothing else, after reading this book you may well respond very differently to those friends and colleagues whom to your question 'How are you today?' every so often flippantly reply 'well I looked at the obits in the newspaper this morning, couldn't find my name there, so I guess I'm pretty well'.

I know I do.