Something/Anything?

Ugh.

george willard escapes from winesburg

Obituaries. They’re weird things. I’m not talking about the death notices that you see in the paper every day that state time of death, survivors, preceded in death by, former employment and hobbies, etc. I’m talking about the obituaries that you see when someone of notoriety in a community dies. I’ve done a few of these in my short career, and I haven’t gotten used to them. Many hit close to home. I did one about my former middle school principal, a well-known, caring leader. One about a man, aged 21, who was killed in Iraq, leaving a wife and kids behind. One about a former college president who took his university from the ashes to prosperity and nearly back to ashes again. One about a high school teacher who refused to give up his old school habits in the face of changing opinions on education. One about a pharmacy assistant, well-loved by her colleagues and customers alike, for her loyalty and friendly demeanor.

The other day I had the unfortunate task to have to write about a car crash that killed two high school students. It started out like all the others. I called up administrators, I got quotes about their lives.

Then I scared myself.

In most of the obits I’ve written, I get to know the person I’m writing about. It’s no secret that writers often get the best profiles about individuals when they write an obituary. But in the case of these two girls, all I could think of while writing was how they died. Nothing else struck me. It’s not that they weren’t excellent people; they were well-liked. But they were so young and had so much ahead of them.

I am not certain exactly why I got so scared. Maybe I was being selfish; maybe I thought of how my obituary would read if I died tomorrow. Maybe reminded me of my own mortality. I’m hoping that it makes me want to avoid obituaries all together (not that I like them anyway). I’d rather focus on writing stories about people like this while they’re sitting across the table from me. Maybe that’s what I should do.