Obituaries provide comfort and sense of community in this time of coronavirus chaos
The first purely random obituary I ever remember reading was in the Philadelphia Daily News in 1991. It was written by Jim Nicholson, a remarkable investigative reporter who became a legendary obit writer.
The obit was about a Philadelphia woman named Addie Vinciguerra. The headline simply proclaimed that she “loved to talk and listen.”
Though it’s hard to remember precisely why it moved me the way it did, I clipped it out and still have it somewhere.
I know the broader reason it was so compelling, something well-articulated in an obituary of Nicholson last year, and something that helps explain why I found myself at what was essentially a drive-through funeral on Sunday ... a poignant scene we’ll get back to here shortly.
Nicholson “spent 19 years celebrating the lives of men and women who were the true lifeblood of the city — the cooks, carpenters, bus drivers and janitors whose stories often went untold,” the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, later adding that he “treated everyday Philadelphians’ obituaries with the sort of care that that was normally reserved for celebrities and heads of state.”
Those stories are all over Kansas City and everywhere else, of course, even though few papers employ full-time obituary writers anymore — a lamentable casualty of the changing times in the business.
But The Star still prints paid remembrances, with the first eight lines free on behalf of anyone who has lived in the Kansas City metropolitan area, and I try to read those every day.
When I asked myself why, my thoughts first flickered to that famous line of Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren as quoted in Sports Illustrated in 1968:
“I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records man’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.”
Those lines have long since blurred in so many ways, of course, perhaps particularly now as we are engulfed in the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic that at least indirectly is part of all our sports stories with everything shut down.
The obituaries, though, typically remain a singularly inspiring place to turn — paradoxical as that might sound. Because even amid the mourning, they present a chance to appreciate the grief of others and celebrate lives.
Sometimes I read them aloud about at the breakfast table. Like this one about James Lee Rainey Jr., who was 90 when he died on March 21. Never mind that he once was president of Kerr-McGee Chemical: He was “big-hearted, forgiving and generous,” and he was known to admonish his five children to “act like you know something ... before being introduced to adults or a tense situation.”
“Family meals could easily last for several hours. Sometimes his children would fall asleep at the table or fake illness to escape an evening lecture series.”
Obits help us pause to remember those who might appear neglected. And they should make us think, too, of those unmentioned or alone.
It’s a place shared by the greatest generation and the most recent generations. They are of our parents and neighbors and children and friends, and they are of strangers.
They are of Mayflower descendants and first-generation immigrants and all races.
They were board members, and they worked the assembly line. They are the extraordinary and the ordinary, which is not to be confused with being the famous and the lesser-known.
They are what we all we come from, varied as our forms and ways might be.
They are us.
Even if the snapshots are incomplete and tend to be framed in the most favorable light, well, who can’t use some favorable lighting?
They are all reminders of just how interconnected we truly are.
That hasn’t changed with these bizarre times.
In fact, that notion of fundamental connection is more clear and present than ever in our separation from each other.
But now those stories are tinged with another sorrowful element: Notices of funerals and memorial services delayed or canceled or, at best, to be carried out only with social distancing. All subject to being exacerbated by rules that have been confusing.
Anyone who has lost someone close to them knows the power, the necessity, even, of proper remembrance in these piercing moments of our lives. And the comfort of friends and family in view, ample tears to be shared and hugs to be had.
Still, we adapt and adjust and try to find our ways, don’t we?
Through resolve and imagination and, as ever, humor.
Like the family of Norman “Jerry” Jerome Neale did, as printed in The Star on March 17 after his death on March 10 at 79 years old.
“Within the family we Neales are somewhat notorious for our unfortunate timing,” his obituary stated. “So somewhere Norman is probably chuckling wryly that he died at the beginning of a pandemic. That being so, following cremation the family plans a private graveside ceremony.
“We ask that friends and family remember Norman, the founder of the ‘Neale Wolf Pack,’ by throwing back your head and howling loudly. The Galoot would love that.’ ”
Obituaries, of course, serve another simple and vital service — such as could be found in the brief one that caught my eye last week about Raymond Boler, who was 72 when he died on March 30. (His broader story, including details of his burial at Ft. Leavenworth, is being told by The Star’s Eric Adler.)
The seven-line notice in the paper requested that friends pay their respects by driving through to view his casket in the portico at the Church of Christ in Overland Park on Sunday.
So a little like I did with the Addie Vinciguerra obituary, I guess, I tore the obit out of the paper.
Then I carried it around a couple days and decided to drive by.
Guided to keep the windows up and proceed slowly through, I glanced out the passenger side at photos and the flag on his casket.
And I waved to the family of a U.S. Air Force veteran who was passionate about water skiing and snow skiing and cherished his children and family and married Francina Rae Crim on Oct. 19, 1968.
As I drove away, I thought about the sheer cruelty of a time when even grieving is challenged but also about the beautiful and sustaining spirit of this.
The idea came to Francina Boler from a variety of thoughts, including seeing news about drive-through birthday parties for children and the experience of people setting up televisions outside the church for post-service Chiefs tailgating.
So she thought, “If we can’t have an indoor funeral, we’ll have an outdoor one.”
The good people of Bruce Funeral Home in Gardner worked with the church to put it together. They got word out through social media ... and that obituary in the paper.
By her estimate, about 115 cars drove through carrying some 250 people from all phases of their lives. Many held signs of encouragement and other messages of love to the windows.
“It turned out,” she said Tuesday, “to be a really heartwarming thing.”
And more testimony to the beacon that obituaries can provide even now. To tell us about each other and help bring people together when we need it most.
This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 1:47 PM.