Dad texted me with the bad news.
“Not to make you feel bad, but we missed the date of the service in the obit.”
I winced. Journalists hate getting something wrong in a story. In this one, I’d gotten something wrong in my grandmother’s obituary.
Every journalist I know has been called upon by friends and family to edit a résumé, read a cover letter, write a bio for someone’s website at work. Many of us have also written obituaries for people we knew and loved, people who pushed us on tree swings when we were children and cranked up music in the car when we were learning to drive. Grandma used to sing “bowl of meat” when John Lennon sang “over me.” I’m not sure which she thought was funnier, the idea that the Beatles would “Come Together” over a bowl of meat, or that singing it made the shaky 16-year-old behind the wheel get shakier as I cracked up laughing.
I wasn’t laughing now, though. I’m a professional. I’m supposed to get it right, and I’d left off key information. People would be calling the church. I winced again as I replied to my dad: “Crap. I had one job.”
• • •
Every student in the basic reporting class at the Missouri School of Journalism had to write two “Life Stories,” longer, reported obituaries, to pass the class. Some journalism schools ask students to write their own obituaries. Mine asked us to call real grieving people, talk to them about their loved ones and write about them.
Few things struck such terror into young hearts as having to call the relatives of the deceased. I remember seeing one student’s hands shake making that call.
“Think of it this way: You’re just calling someone to ask about their grandmother,” one of the editors advised. Still, we students rifled through the announcements from funeral homes, coming through on a fax machine back then, to make sure we were indeed calling about a grandparent and not someone’s suicide, or a child. Please, we’d think, let it not be anything violent, sudden or too heartbreaking. Just someone’s meemaw who was at least 95.
My first call was to the daughter of a woman named Ginny, who’d been 90 when she died. I read the family members’ names a few times so I’d remember them once I got on the phone. Then I swallowed and dialed.
After introducing myself as a newspaper reporter on those calls, I would say something like: “I’m very sorry to be bothering you at this time, but I wonder if you would want to share some stories about your mother with me?” and then hold my breath in the microseconds before the person on the other end responded.
It was easier than we feared. People would just start talking. It would all spill out. And in the end, they would usually thank me. Swiping away a tear or two myself, I’d tell them, “No, no, thank you,” and let them know when the Life Story would run in the paper.
After I wrote my first obit for the paper, I wrote my first for a friend. A woman I knew lost her mother, who was 95. I offered to help the best way I knew how, with the obit. I went to her house, took notes, then wrote about 600 words and sent them to her. Edit what you want to edit from here, I told her. At least you have the structure. “It’s a start,” I said. Even though I knew it felt like an ending.
• • •
There was a time when newspapers had reporters who wrote obituaries and nothing else. From 2002-07, Claire Martin was one of those reporters for The Denver Post. She told me before she left The Post recently that it was the most rewarding writing she did in her career of nearly four decades.
People often were laughing when they talked to her, she said. Sometimes they’d cry, and she’d cry. She deliberately looked for the stories we students shied from. “I would try to write about suicides on a regular basis, because my dad had committed suicide, and I knew there was a big stigma about that.”
Then she started telling me about the obit writers’ conference she went to.
“There are the obit writers. There are the librarian obit people — they’re very academic. Then there’s the hangers-on. The most egregious people who came were in this hearse, and they’re wearing ‘Cancer sucks’ buttons. … I wasn’t really clear what their presence there was about.” And there were the fans. “People are just fans of obits, and they came with scrapbooks of their favorite obits. They liked to collect unusual obituaries.”
• • •
There are fans, and there are critics. Write enough obits for family and friends, and your family — your main audience — will let you know that while your work is appreciated, it’s not quite right.
Everyone’s an editor. Even while grieving.
Semantics matter with our loved ones. Newspapers follow AP style, which calls for using the word “died” instead of “passed away” or other less-harsh terms. I think I’m comfortable with the word just from working in this business. But my dad edited out “died” and added “passed,” then “passed peacefully.” It was minor but important, crafting what made him feel best. Like the funeral and the wake, the obit is a ritual for those we include under “survived by.”
My mother-in-law also edited out “died” when I wrote my father-in-law’s initial obituary, and over the course of three days of strenuous rewriting changed every single thing I wrote. I tried not to take it personally. I knew it wasn’t about me — this obit was for her. It was her process. But I still felt a little tweaked that the only thing I recognized from my first draft was all of our names.
Semantics matter for our more pragmatic relatives as well. When my grandfather on my mom’s side died, my grandmother kept “died” and added in far more than what I’d written — straightforward but loving lines about his incurable disease, his work, his life since he retired. She’s sharp as a tack, and I wasn’t surprised that when she sent me a second version for an edit, she’d perfectly picked up newspaper style.
Those moments of back and forth over an obit’s edits have been some of the most quiet and personal moments of the grieving process. I never cry then — and I am a crier. But not right then. When deciding on the final version of the obituary, it’s just me and one person I love, making sure the right words are there for those who remain.
Jenn Fields: 303-954-1599 or jfields@denverpost.com
