How to Write an Online Obituary
Colorful stories for modern lives
A beautiful obituary is a final gift to your loved one.
When someone you love dies, it feels unbearable for a while. There’s no getting around it. But writing a fresh, unique obituary makes your grief a tiny bit easier to take. It’s a final gift to your loved one. For ideas, check out this blog or write me: [email protected]. I’d love to help. Below you’ll find info not just on obituaries and obituary templates, but also on grief, hospice care, end-of-life apps, podcasts and other technology, funeral crowdfunding, and more. If you find it useful, please leave a comment or drop me a line.
Ordinary People Frozen in Time
A.L. Wix was just ordinary people—one of those regular chaps who schlep through life showing up, working hard, and trying to do right by their families. Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Wix’s obituary, written by George B. Ellis and published 100 years ago today in the Butler Weekly Times and the Bates County Record, in Columbia, Missouri. Just a normal bloke, frozen for all time in the digital ether.
Sample Mindmap for a Father’s Obituary
A mindmap or wordcloud is a tool for getting started writing an obituary. I created this mindmap for my father-in-law's obituary, but it could be used for a father's obituary as well. Either way, your content will be completely different. For two more sample mindmaps...
Obituary Clichés: What to Say Instead
A few years back, I wrote a magazine piece that the editor criticized for containing too many clichés. In his edited version, the new opening sentence begins with "Tall, leggy blondes…" Turns out it's tough to write without using clichés, which are a sort of cultural...
Drones Give Bird’s-Eye View of Funeral Processions
Live-streaming of funerals has become commonplace, and the resulting video makes a great addition to your obituee's virtual memorial. But filming funeral processions with drones? Well, that's a twist. Lance Cpl. Skip Wells, age 21, was the youngest person killed in...
Sample Barf Draft of an Obituary
Journalists use the term "barf draft" to mean a rough draft that's written (or recorded and then transcribed) all at once, without stopping to think or correct yourself or look up missing information. Once you create a barf draft of an obituary, you might still spend...
Writing about Smells in an Obituary
Steaming waffles. Dana Brown Safari coffee. Zest soap. Petunias. Cool, wet grass. Firewood. Those are some of the scents and smells I associate with my grandmother. If I were writing her obituary, I'd want to include as much of that sensory detail as possible. But how...
If Passwords Die with You, Your Loved Ones Are Screwed
My dad did all of his banking and other business online. When he died, he left a wacky list of password hints behind for my mother to decipher. Not passwords, mind you, but cryptic hints my mom would need to decode in order to figure out the actual password. One of...
Best Podcasts on Death, Dying, Aging, and Grief
For 7 or 8 years now, I've been a podcast junkie. My wireless Bose earbuds are never far away. I listen when I'm cooking, cleaning, exercising, drying my hair, putting on makeup, or trying to fall asleep. If you're new to podcasts, here's great tutorial on how to...
Medical Data Mining in Online Obituaries
Patients who withdraw from medical research studies sometimes can’t be contacted—in medical jargon, they’re said to have been “lost to follow-up.” Did the experimental drug or procedure work? The outcome among the drop-outs is unknown.
Crowdfunding a Funeral: Tacky or Smart?
Here in the Midwest, it's common at weddings to have a "dollar dance," in which guests slip the bride a dollar bill as they take turns whirling her around the floor of some Moose Lodge or skeezy banquet hall. This tradition is wrong on so many levels that I can't even...
Sexism and Stroganoff
The 2013 New York Times obituary for Yvonne Brill, a rocket scientist, infamously opened with a description of her her housewifely charms: ”She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three...
Digital Objects Are a Virtual Rip-Off
I’m all for capitalism. But paying to light a virtual candle or leave a virtual rose is the digital equivalent of buying a pet rock: Buyers receive little or nothing of real value in exchange for their money.
Virtual Memorial Websites and Apps
List and Comparison of Virtual Memorial Cost and Features If you anticipate a death in the family or if you're in the funeral business, you might find it useful to have a list of virtual memorial/digital memorial/digital afterlife/end-of-life websites and apps. The...
Is Digital Immortality a Creepy Concept?
Folks say your life stays on the internet forever, as if digital immortality were a creepy or sinister prospect. We've been warned about posting racy Spring Break photos so many times, it's become a cliché. But is it possible that our Facebook and Instagram photos...
Grandmother’s Obituary Used to Scold Sinners
An obituary shouldn't be a platform for the obituarist's own hatred, shame, or guilt. In an obituary for his grandmother, Joshua Fischer denounces our “selfish desires” and deplores our “lying, stealing, cheating, taking of innocent life, adultery, fornication,...
Crowdfunding Pays for Funerals After Disaster
Texas families who lost loved ones or homes in the recent Houston–area flooding are turning to crowdfunding to pay funeral or living expenses. The idea is a good one, but it’s not new. In fact, entrepreneurs have launched crowdfunding venues designed especially for...
Quick-Start Guide to Obituary Writing (Free!)
Why do we dread obituary writing? And why are obituaries so gloomy and colorless? Toss the templates. Write a fresh, original tribute, not a résumé and not an old-fashioned print obituary, or "death notice," as a newspaper would call it. To learn how to write a...
This Mistake Guarantees a Schmaltzy Obituary
Here’s the wrenching conclusion to a young father’s obituary. What do you think—sweet or schmaltzy?
Do Obituary Templates Shortchange the Dead?
If the idea of filling in a few factoids is a lot more appealing to you than the prospect of starting an obituary from scratch, you’re in good company: According to Google Trends, the search term “obituary template” is way more popular than “obituary writing.” If your loved one had a generic personality and lived a cookie-cutter life, by all means—use a boilerplate template. It’ll capture your loved one’s uniqueness with all the joy of a 1040 form, minus the refund.
Is It Sexist to Use an Old Photo in a Woman’s Obituary?
Fifteen or 20 years ago, I had an elderly neighbor who chain smoked, panicked during thunderstorms, and called 911 every few months out of sheer loneliness. One day when I stopped by to chat, she asked me to wait a moment—there was something she wanted to show me. She...
Destination Funerals Change Scenery
Cremation has made it possible to hold a memorial in a distant location well after a person's death, giving rise to so-called destination funerals. “Just as marriages have moved away from religious buildings and register offices,” says London’s Daily Mail, “now people...
Dear Johann: Obituary Tradition in Iceland
The people of Iceland have kept up a lovely tradition of writing letter-style obituaries, in which the obituarist writes a message directly to the obituee. These messages are warm and sincere, but they're not sappy or unduly sorrowful. Above all, each letter is...
Geofilters Create Custom Geofenced Funeral Stickers
On Snapchat and other apps, you can use geofilters to customize a geofenced sticker for a funeral. The sticker is said to be geofenced because it's made available on the app in a limited geographic area for a certain period of time. Snap users, for example, would then...
Toss the Template and Tell the Story
The narrative arc of a person's life naturally moves from cradle to grave. We're born, go to school, attend college or learn a trade. Most of us get married. Most of us get divorced. Most of us have children. Some join the military or open a business or change the...