Another hobby

One of my favorite activities is to read obituaries. I know I know, it sounds like an odd hobby but it's something that I've always done. Most people grab a newspaper and head straight to the comics or the sports page, not me, I'm straight for the obits everytime. Generally the obits can be pretty mundane but every now and again I find one that is just amazing. I love the ones that are written as a tribute to the person who has passed as versus a simple statement of facts.

Yesterday I found one that was written in the first person. It was one of the best obituaries I've read in a long time. I was moved by her words and the time that she took to write her own obituaries in the last moments of her life. If you feel like having a read, here it is...

I know that death isn't a hugely popular subject but it is something that I've always been fascinated by. If fact my pre-school report cards says something like, "Shelagh seems to have a preoccupation with death and often casually kills off characters while playing". Personally I think this has more to do with my baby sitters preoccupation with the afternoon soaps and the predictable death and resurrection of characters on a weekly basis.

I occcasionally wonder what that preschool teacher thought of my need to kill off useless characters and what she thought it predicted for the future. Perhaps she thought I was a sociopathic chain saw murderer in the making. My preschool was just down the road from the Maternity Home that was the subject in the book "The Butterbox Babies" by Bette Cahill where hundreds of infants were buried in butterboxes.

Realistically, I've grown up to be an adult with a healthy respect for death and a strong sense of empathy for the dying. I know that death is an unfortunate side effect of living. I read obituaries out of respect for those those who have gone before us. But mostly I wonder where they have gone to... but that is another post on another day.