I'll get to the goats in a minute. My Irish grandmother always referred to obituaries as the Irish Sports Pages.
This may seem a bit weird, but I love reading obits. To me they are short stories about people's lives. Give me a good long obituary for a very old person and I'll find an interesting nugget of information.
For example, an obit I read a couple of days ago talked about how this lady was an avid bowler. She had bowling balls for all four seasons. Now that was a nugget.
Another one talked about the cowards who attacked and killed their mother in her apartment. You rarely see that kind of thing in an obit. I found the article and yes, the mother had been beaten to death by an unknown assailant.
The pictures can be wonderful too. I especially love it when you get a young and an old picture. Some of those 1940s hairdos were really something. And the WWII photos of these handsome guys in their uniforms are just great.
I'm amazed by how many obits talk about the person going to be with God or Jesus and, of course, other family members who have died. I remember my Aunt Jerry, my grandma's daughter, telling me that she would be waiting for me in heaven with my mother (her sister). The last person I ever want to see is my mother and quite frankly I don't think she's in heaven. If she is, then God or someone, made a mistake.
My sister reads them too so maybe there is a genetic connection here.
The language is interesting to sort out; viewing means you get to see the body and visitation means you get to talk to the dead person's relatives and friends. I can sort of tell when it's a suicide because it will say that someone died unexpectedly at home. It's usually a younger person. I feel sorry for the person who found the body.
Anyway, on to the goats. Our neighbors a couple of acres away have a bunch of them. Apparently there is a break in their fence and these pretty little creatures are roaming the neighborhood. One of them has a damaged hoof so he/she hops on three legs. We only hope they will stay long enough to eat lots of blackberry bushes. Not even sure if the owners realize there is a break in the fence. The cats and Harleen get quite excited when they show up on the front porch.
Oh, and Kerry has Shingles. What else can happen healthwise here?
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4 comments:
i check out the obits once in a while, usually in passing during a building check at work. i saw one obit once, for a young man, that announced he died by suicide. it was quite a moving obit and really quite well done. it's too bad that obits are so expensive, especially with photos. when my mother-in-law died we had obits posted in three papers (three different cities as she'd lived in teh north and south of the province) and it cost over $800 for a short obit and a photo.
Obits are my hobby! I enjoyed your post and hope you'll keep me in mind when you come across a good one.
You can find my blog here: http://ninalentinislifewithoutend.blogspot.com/.
All best,
Nina
I started reading the obits shortly after I started reading newspapers, my Grandmother called it the Irish sports page. " At 70 it is still the first thing I look at, albeit now on line.
Nice to have stumbled on your post, which I enjoyed reading.
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