Therapeutic Obituaries

Wait. What? She died? I recently received the news that a friend from high school had died. Gone. Will not be at the next class reunion in our small town. Will never again laugh as we share the memory of making bean and cheese burritos after volleyball practice while listening to Bryan Adams. Will never hold grandchildren. Will never ride a horse again. Will never…will never turn 45.

High school is a little bit further in the rear-view mirror of life than I realize, and the truth is that after high school we had gone to different colleges and moved away, staying connected only loosely through social media. What had become of my friend? Who had she been as an adult? Did she still like the same movies we watched as teenagers? Still love Shania Twain? I searched ye olde internet for answers, specifically, I searched for her obituary.

Obituaries transform years into paragraphs. Well-written obituaries leave their readers nodding their heads, knowing the story is nowhere near complete and yet somehow just right. They give the writer and readers a sense of having placed a period at the end of a sentence. The writer must—especially when considering a newspaper obituary runs hundreds or even thousands of dollars—choose the highlights carefully.

Whether overtly or not, most people come to therapy with some sort of grief. It may be the actual death of a loved one, or it may be a different kind of loss—grief for a childhood destroyed by trauma, a broken relationship, a future limited by a diagnosis, dreams of being a parent to a healthy child. At some point in therapy, it may be helpful to address the grief by writing an obituary not of a person, but of a thing that is now gone. Dead. Not to return.

The internet is loaded with tips on what to include (and exclude) in an obituary. There’s even a page called ObituaryGuide.com, which reinforces my belief that there’s a page for everything. Borrowing (stealing?) from all of these sources, here are a few tips for writing a therapeutic obituary:

1. Name the thing that you are grieving.

2. Identify approximate “birth” and “death” dates.

3. Itemize the facts and figures—what was it about? Who are the surviving “family” members? Were there other “deaths” preceding this one?

4. Describe some of the highlights. Notably, most obituaries focus overwhelmingly on the positive aspects of the deceased. And while bitter and vindictive obituaries may cause one to gasp or giggle nervously, they often reveal more about the writer than the one supposedly memorialized. Focus on the positive.

5. End with a call to altruism. Many end with places to donate money or send flowers. Think of something that would be appropriately altruistic given the thing you grieve.

Here's a sample:

Dream of Having a Family (1974-2022)

The Dream of Having a Family was born in the Christmas of 1974 when I received a baby doll complete with diapers, a bottle, fuzzy pajamas, and a little white blanket with pink flowers. I loved that baby doll and named her Julie. Julie went with me to show-and-tell at preschool, on family trips in our old station wagon, and even to the grocery store. Throughout elementary school, when people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I hesitated, not knowing what a woman could do, and answered, “A mother.” Dream gave me a vision of who I was. Dream gave me a plan for my future and a sense of where my anxious self was going in life. I didn’t know what I was going to do professionally for quite a while, but Dream kept me company. Dream of Having a Family was not very busy during college or medical school but resurfaced again when I got married during my residency. Dream of Having a Family loved to show up around the holidays, at my friends’ baby showers, on my own birthday, each Mother's Day, and in the delicate suggestions of my own mother. It was there in tv shows and announcements for community Easter egg hunts and hay rides in pumpkin patches. It always made me smile, gave me an escape, took the sting out of being passed over for a promotion. When work at the hospital was exhausting, discouraging, and sometimes angering, Dream of Having a Family would keep me company and distract me from the demands of my job.

Dream of Having a Family was diagnosed with a terminal illness in 2011 when in the same year I was finally promoted at the hospital and my husband took up residence with another woman. Dream fought a hard battle, trying couples’ counseling, trying better boundaries at work, and even attending adoption seminars after failed IVF in 2017. Dream opted for an experimental treatment, dating several men via online dating sites, but grew weaker with each miserable weirdo with whom I dined or saw a movie. Dream of Having a Family died peacefully in my therapist’s office, having been preceded in death by Dream of a Happy Marriage to Tom. Dream leaves behind a sense of completion as a person, with or without children. It leaves behind gratitude for a meaningful and satisfying career. It leaves money and a phone full of pictures of wonders around the world. It leaves time to read and work in the garden. In lieu of flowers, please hug yourself tightly and say something kind to a child in your extended family or on the street.

Did you know that there are professional obituary writers? In the same way that you can hire someone to help write the condensed story of your beloved, you may wish to hire a therapist to help you grieve and write the obituary of the thing you lost. May it rest in peace.