RIP? Not Cubs fans in a playoff year

CHICAGO - If you want to know just how important the Cubs are to Chicago, a good place to start is at the end.

In a city where fans have been known to scatter ashes of the dearly departed at Wrigley Field, families of those who could no longer wait ‘till next season are planting Cubs pennants and flags at the graves of loved ones or sending them off to the great beyond with Cubs hats and jerseys in their caskets.

Resting easy has never been easy for Cubs fans, after all.

Take the family of the late Norman and Florence Sanders. Relatives are making sure they can still do what they did their entire lives: Root for the Cubs.

“One of my daughters went and bought a W flag and about a week ago went to the cemetery and put it there with them,” said Terry Ann Arriaga, whose father died the year the Cubs came within five outs of reaching the World Series back in 2003 and whose mother passed during spring training this year.

As the Cubs try to reach the World Series for the first time since 1945 and win it for the first time since 1908, Chicago is awash in Cubbie blue and red. Children head to school decked out in Cubs gear and many grown-ups are doing the same at work. “Fly the W” flags are waving from car antennas, porches and museums, while bakeries are topping doughnuts and cookies with the Cubs logo. Death notices with the names of spouses, children and grandchildren now sometimes have a few words about the deceased’s devotion to the lovable losers.

“In lieu of flowers, go to a Cubs game and raise your glass in memory of Mary,” wrote the family of Mary E. Fickenscher after she died in June.