Obits & Lies

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

Because our grandson just turned 13, I couldn’t resist reading the John Fairfax obit to Helen. He ran away from home in Argentina at 13 to live in the jungle, returning with animal skins to sell. Later he was the first person to cross the Atlantic by himself in a row boat. He spent 3 years as captain of a pirate ship, smuggling guns, whisky, and cigarettes all over the world. [1]

Helen said I should cut that out and save it to use as my obit. Why she thought that would be more interesting than “Old retired small town preacher finally dies,” I don’t know.

I think she was remembering Bob, a neighbor of our grandchildren [and their parents, but who pays attention to them?] in Mason City, IA, the “River City” of The Music Man. As best anyone could remember, Bob had worked for the railroad. But in his retirement, he went about the neighborhood, puffing on his pipe and telling everyone he had worked for the FBI, rising to the position of “Number 2 man.” Everyone thought it was appropriate, since the story was a lot of Number 2. Everyone but the FBI. They sent agents to tell him to cease and desist. But Bob was not deterred. Indeed, he had written and set aside his obit against his eventual demise. It is now a part of permanent public newspaper record that he had been the Number 2 Man in the FBI.

We lie about ourselves for 2 reasons: to stay/get out of trouble, and to look better than we really are. Lying to stay out of trouble isn’t noble, but it makes sense. But why do we need to lie to be someone other than we are? Can’t we accept who we really are, children of God, as enough?

I suppose lying to appear better than we are makes some sense, too, if you’re running for office, or trying to get a date with someone prettier than you are. But in an obit? What good does it do then?

Not everything is right for an obit. There are things I don’t want in my obit, things that embarrass me, things I’m ashamed of, like leaving Sophia Loren crying in the rain at the Gare Du Nord as I walked away and left her. Or the way John Wayne looked, groveling in the sawdust. If I hadn’t jammed my fingers on his jaw, Michael Jordan would never have hit that game-winning shot over my out-stretched hand in the All-Star Game. Yes, some things are best omitted from obits. [2]

We should hope that our obit will say that we died laughing, the way my grandpa did. He was going on a fishing trip with friends. One moment he was laughing, the next he was dead. That’s the way to go, not screaming in terror, like the other men in his car. [3]

No, obits are best left to the facts. I hope mine says, “Old retired small town preacher finally learned it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

JRMcF

1] Sports Illustrated, page 15, Feb. 27, 2012.

2] I have a cold. It’s wondrous how those little red decongestant pills unclog the memory. That reminds me that I once dated a girl named Dee Congestant.

3] The insouciant Lola Johnson, RN (Ret.), told this as part of her program, Laughing All the Way to the Grave [my title, not hers] for our “Living Is For Ever” group at Bay De Noc CC West.


The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.

{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}

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