Ladies' Man

​How weird would it be to attend the memorial service of a complete stranger? 

I am fascinated with obituaries and enjoy reading them. Since relocating from the DC area to the Eastern Shore, we don't get the paper delivered daily to our doorstep. But sometimes, especially on Sunday, my husband will go out to the local convenience store and buy one. After reading my favorite sections, I will then open the obituaries and scan the faces. Often it’s the picture of a young face that gets me. Or an elderly face with deep, expressive eyes. Other times I zero in on ones where the person’s age or birth year – prominently displayed in the header – is similar to mine. 

I’m interested in the cause of death (not always mentioned), the person’s loves, their people, their profession, their lives. There is such depth and richness even in the most ordinary of lives. I realize too, that the obituary medium itself  – bound by space and word-count – tells only the tiniest fraction of a sliver of the whole story. The messy, the real, the unmasked is rarely, if ever discussed in the ordinary person’s obituary. And we all have messy, real, and unmasked. 

Sometimes it’s the writing that jumps off the page and grabs me. Such as the opening sentence of an obituary that was accompanied by the picture of a round-faced, smiling man in his late fifties: “Husband, father, brother, mentor, ladies’ man, avid reader, sharp dresser, Redskins fan, and a notorious jokester…” 

Hmm. Husband and ladies’ man in the same sentence. Now that’s honest. 

The obituary went on to say that he had a “…life-long love affair with cars, ice cream, burritos, animals, and German chocolate cake.” A bit further down the obituary declared that there was "never a dull moment" when this man was around.

Wow. 

I wanted to attend the celebration of this stranger’s life. Stand in the background and watch. Mingle with the friends of the man who loved ice cream, burritos, and German chocolate cake. Step into the world where one can be a husband, a ladies’ man and a notorious jokester. A world where there was never a dull moment.