The latest star of selfie obits: ‘I’m gone! The devil finally called my name’
Angus B. MacDonald “bought the farm” on March 25.
“So, the world doesn’t have Angus MacDonald to kick around anymore,” he wrote. “I’m gone! The devil finally called my name. The grim reaper came for me on Friday, March 25, 2016.”
He wants you to know that he “was a pretty nice guy, despite being a former punk and despite what some people would say about me. What did they know about me anyway?”
He also wants you to know that he loved his family and “cared for them through good times and bad; I did my best.”
And by the way, he was cremated because funerals are so expensive and he really didn’t want “people gawking” at him.
That’s what the Canadian man put in his obituary, which he wrote himself and which, after it was published by the Cape Breton Post and posted online, has made people around the world wish they’d known him before he “bit the dust.”
“I missed out by not knowing this cat! What a guy! God speed, Angus MacDonald,” wrote one online commenter.
“Great obit! I hope I have the opportunity to write my own,” wrote another. “No rush. I do have it in my will that I will be cremated and the urn will bear the inscription ‘Instant Grunt, just add beer.’”
Self-written obituaries, also known as selfie obits and autobituaries, have become increasingly popular in recent years. Tips on how to write one are just a Google search away. In the age of social media, all it takes is a simple tweet, or post to Facebook or Reddit, to boost one to viral fame.
“For some people, writing their own obituary is an important part of coming to terms with the fact that their lives are coming to an end,” Legacy spokeswoman Hayes Ferguson told The New York Daily News after “Homeland” actor James Rebhorn wrote his own death notice.
“For others, it’s a way to make sure they are remembered the way they want to be remembered.”
In April 2015 a Florida woman’s self-written obituary, 1,045 words in length, went viral, scooping up thousands of likes on Facebook.
“It pains me to admit it, but apparently, I have passed away,” wrote Emily Phillips, who was 69 when she died of pancreatic cancer.
“Everyone told me it would happen one day but that’s simply not something I wanted to hear, much less experience. Once again I didn’t get things my way!”
Phillips wrapped up her obit with a message to family and friends. “Please don’t cry because I’m gone; instead be happy that I was here. (Or maybe you can cry a little bit. After all, I have passed away).”
Some people write their own obits to air the regrets of their lives. In 2012 Val Patterson of Salt Lake City died of throat cancer. He was 59.
He started working on his obit after he was diagnosed and finished it a month before he died. He thought most obituaries read like boring resumes and didn’t want to add to his family’s stress by making them write it.
His humor and melancholy drew so many people to his words the obit crashed the funeral home’s website where it was posted.
“My regret is that I felt invincible when young and smoked cigarettes when I knew they were bad for me,” Patterson wrote. “Now, to make it worse, I have robbed my beloved Mary Jane of a decade or more of the two of us growing old together and laughing at all the thousands of simple things that we have come to enjoy.”
It seems that more often than not, people go for last laughs.
Walter Bruhl left his self-written obituary on his home computer. After he died at age 80 on March 9, 2014, his family decided to honor his wishes and have it published in The News Journal in Newark, Del.
Bruhl’s grandson also posted it to Facebook and Reddit, where it was seen by tens of thousands of people around the world.
People were charmed by Bruhl’s sense of humor.
“Walt was preceded in death by his tonsils and adenoids in 1935; a spinal disc in 1974; a large piece of his thyroid gland in 1988; and his prostate on March 27, 2000.”
“He was surrounded by his loving wife of 57 years, Helene Sellers Bruhl, who will now be able to purchase the mink coat which he had always refused her because he believed only minks should wear mink.”
“There will be no viewing since his wife refuses to honor his request to have him standing in the corner of the room with a glass of Jack Daniel’s in his hand so he would appear natural to visitors.”
MacDonald began his obit by announcing, “I’m gone! The devil finally called my name.”
He lived in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and had “serious health problems the last few years.” In the obit he asked that memorial donations be given to a local hospital’s palliative care unit.
He wrote of his family and his beloved dog, Scarlett, who preceded him in death.
“I guess if there’s a place in the after-life where little dogs and old dawgs go, then that’s where you’ll find me and Scarlett,” he wrote.
The world doesn’t have Angus MacDonald to kick around anymore, wrote Angus MacDonald himself.
But speaking for the world, we wish that we did.
This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 10:18 AM with the headline "The latest star of selfie obits: ‘I’m gone! The devil finally called my name’."