Lessons Learned by Writing an Obituary
Think writing a news release is hard? A brochure? An S-1? An ad? Try writing an obituary.
That was my task this weekend as my father-in-law, Ray Elwood Mann (yes, the husband of Betty Mann), passed away early Saturday morning, December 1, 2007.
The first time I had to write an obit was in my first journalism class at Brigham Young University. The assignment was to write an obituary for yourself. And as the teacher explained, it was one of the toughest assignments we had all semester.
The second time I wrote an obituary it was for real as I marked the passing of my father, Lucas G. Politis, Jr., nearly 23 years ago this December.
So why is writing an obit so hard - emotions aside?
In concept, an obituary is very simple: Boil down someone’s life into several hundred words. In practice, however, obituary writing is extremely difficult.
After submitting the final version of Ray’s obituary to the mortuary this morning, it occurred to me that a well-written obituary is one of the ultimate examples of following the principles of The Betty Factor. And as my professors taught me in college, obituaries are centered around the key questions each journalist must answer when preparing a story:
- Who?
- What?
- When?
- Where?
- Why? and
- How?
Did I do a good job? I think so. Betty liked it. So did Allisha and her siblings.
What do you think?
Ray’s obituary will run in the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret Morning News this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And I’ll post Ray’s obituary here in a few minutes.
I hope that no one reading this post will feel that doing so demeans Ray in any manner whatsoever. In many ways, Ray helped fill the vacuum my father’s death left in my life in 1984. And he and Betty have been a big part of our family ever since we moved to Utah in 1987 and bought a house less than five miles away from their home.
Writing his obituary helped me see with new insight the remarkable person Ray Mann was (and is). Besides, what better way to honor him than to use this experience as a possible teaching moment?
Thanks, Ray. You’ll be missed in this life, but I look forward to our reunion in the next.
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