Obituaries Offer Glimpses Into Lives Well Lived

Some days it's a sly turn of phrase, a well-composed "wink" tofamily and friends, that grabs my attention.

Some days it's a passing reminder that everyone has some tinydetail in his or her life that wonderfully captures the personbehind that half-column black-and-white photo.

I love reading obituaries.

There's the time-worn joke that only old people pay attention tothem. But from the time I could read, I've skimmed them. I rememberthinking how unfair it was that only famous people got theirobituaries on Page One.

An obituary is history, it's early life tragedy, it's familymemories, it's a reflection of culture, it's sometimes a love of thebizarre detail, often all rolled into one.

I don't mean to make light of the real lives lived before these10-inch write-ups hit the paper. But with a well-written obit, itoften doesn't matter that I never knew these people while they werealive - someone, either they themselves, family or a friend, hascaptured part of them, has said, in essence, Here's why you shouldpay attention.

How can you resist Mary Douglass Ritz Risser, for example? Herobituary, published in this paper Feb. 8, recorded how Mary earnedher first dollar, with her grandfather's help: skinning out andstretching a weasel to earn a state bounty. I'm assuming she musthave been a great storyteller, too, regaling her family withchildhood details such as that.

And that's before we learn of Mrs. Risser's internationaltravels, her husband's service in World War II and her love of allliving things "except ticks, fleas, voles, and mosquitoes."

Mrs. Risser, I am completely with you on that.

In the world of obituary appreciation, I am a mere novice. Youmight think my enthusiasm strange.

If that's the case, you certainly wouldn't understand MarilynJohnson, who penned "The Dead Beat: The Perverse Pleasures ofObituaries."

She writes of Internet sites dedicated to finding the bestobituaries of the day from around the world.

She visits conferences organized by obituary writers, outlinesthe debates between obit stylists, follows the newsstand battlesbetween British tabloid obit writers and examines the differencesbetween American and British obits. (In a nutshell: American paperstraditionally run them as a news story: Just the facts, ma'am. InBritain, it's been more acceptable to write them as a piece ofentertainment - not false, necessarily, but with more bravado andlots of fascination with the more lurid parts of a subject's life.)

And she writes about The New York Times' "Portraits of Grief,"the 200-word snapshots of people who were lost in the 9/11 attacks.

Some purists didn't like those profiles; they argued that theyover-sentimentalized gut-wrenching loss.

The Times argues (on its website, where the portraits will remainindefinitely at www.newyorktimes.com - click on Portraits of Grief)that they were meant to be impressions, not full obituaries. Andyes, written in the days and weeks after the horror, some are boundto be emotionally unrestrained.

Me, I asked for the bound collection of "Portraits" forChristmas, and plowed through, one page a day, until they all hadbeen read and acknowledged.

They were here. They mattered. Behind every half-column black-and-white photo lie loyalty and mistakes, perseverance and failure,everyday giddiness and unspoken hopes.

And when a little of that everyday person shines through, it canstop me in my tracks.

jkopf@lnpnews.com