My mother’s obit won’t ever reveal fullness of her life
This is my first Mother’s Day without a mother. She’d suffered for two painful years after a fall, a broken hip and an unsuccessful operation. The last time I saw her she said, “Pray for me.” She died just before St. Patrick’s Day. She was 91.
The next day, I told the funeral director that I’d prepare her obituary. I’d written obituaries of John Lennon, Ed Koch, Margaret Thatcher and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, among others. How hard could it be to write my own mother’s?
She was an avid reader of newspaper obituaries — “the Irish sports pages,” my father said. One appeal is that, unlike most stories that journalists prepare, obits have a beginning, a middle and a very definite end.
I gave my mother the obit I thought she would have wanted, and the one I thought she deserved. It made her sound attractive, stylish, fun. A bit frivolous, maybe, but a character who enjoyed herself, and with whom you might enjoy having a drink.
I knew enough to focus on specifics, like her favorite color (purple). I avoided banalities, like how much she loved her children, which would have been remarkable only if she hadn’t. I told of her fondness for an offshore breeze, a nice tan and a stiff Manhattan. I named her favorite lunch (a lobster roll at Captain Al’s) and the last book she read ( The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair).
I recalled her pointed opinions, like the time, upon recognizing the comedian Andy Kaufman seated at the next restaurant table, she announced: “I hate him!”
From my brother I learned the name of our mother’s favorite takeout deli egg sandwich, and from my sister her favorite flower (pink carnations). Someone claimed she was once mistaken for Doris Roberts, the mother on Everybody Loves Raymond —I put that in, too.
I did my best for her, which I thought was fine indeed. I also thought I was finished — the life of Sheila McDonnell Hampson in 1,150 words. I was wrong. The morning of her funeral, on her nightstand, I found an old, well-thumbed booklet for saying the Rosary. Although she had a big, fine house full of exquisite possessions, at the end this tattered blue object was her closest, and implicitly most precious, possession.
But her obit said nothing about her faith.
After we buried her, I got notes from two friends. One recalled how my mother always sent money on Valentine’s Day to take her kids for ice cream. This was at a time, my friend recalled, when she’d just divorced and money was tight, but what she really treasured was the thought the gift expressed.
The other friend recalled how, when her niece was injured in an accident, my mother showered gifts on the child, whom she hadn’t even known.
But her obit said nothing about her kindness.
God knows what else I missed. I’m waiting to find out.
Because an obituary, seemingly so final, is really just a first, rough draft of a life story.
I did my best for her, which I thought was fine indeed. I also thought I was finished — her life in 1,150 words. I was wrong.