by Kelley Edwards
HOW DO YOU CAPTURE A PERSON’S LIFE IN A FEW PARAGRAPHS?
Writing an obituary is a balancing act between reporting facts and capturing a soul.
Condensing a lifetime into a few paragraphs feels like an impossible task. When I sat down to write my father’s obituary, the examples I found felt cold- rigid rows of dates and titles that didn’t sound anything like the man I knew. I realized then that an obituary shouldn’t just be a record of death; it should be a witness to the personality that made that life worth living
To capture the man-the real, complicated, sometimes hilarious man- had to ditch the somber script and lean into the comedy of his character.
My father was a character in every sense of the word-complex, stubborn, and possessed of a sharp wit. As my siblings and I sat down to draft his final tribute, we found ourselves trading jokes that, while funny, carried the undeniable ring of truth. We realized that a ‘standard’ obituary would be a disservice to him; it would describe a man who didn’t exist. I didn’t want to invent saintly attributes for a man who was proudly flawed, so I chose the only path that felt authentic. I decided to make it funny. So it began:
As hard as it is to believe, one of the last of the tough guys has finally left us. On December 1st, Fred Edwards, our very own “Clint Eastwood”, slipped peacefully away at the age of 81, holding the hand of his son.
My father was an exasperating man. Stubborn is an understatement; he could put a mule to shame. And he was of that generation that required men to be “tough”. It lead to many arguments with his family. But there was also humour in it.
He will always be remembered for those watery blue eyes, amazing hair and a great set of teeth (that he often kept in his pocket)
One of Fred’s favourite things was to be outside in nature, whether fishing on the shores of the Bras d’or or hunting that elusive buck that he always “almost got”.
Being a multitasker, he saved the health care system some money by deciding that rather than a trip to the doctor, he could just cut out that possibly malignant growth on his arm with a utility knife from his tool box, reassuring his horrified children that he sterilized the blade with a lighter at the same time as lighting his cigarette.
This was our dad. Often, when people die, they become “saints”. But anyone who knew our father would know the stories and the man. So it seemed dishonest to create something other than who he was. Many of his friends and neighbours told us that they loved the obituary as it captured his character. It made me happy to know that he would have gotten a good laugh himself.
Yes, there is certain information that needs to go in a death announcement. But you don’t have to stick to a formula of specifics and statistics. A true obituary has to smuggle a whole person past the gatekeeping of formality, using just enough detail that a stranger reading it feels, for a few paragraphs, the loss of someone they never met. This is the only way I knew how to honour the person who was my dad.