After a fatal car crash in Maine, the obituary reads, "Jeffrey lost his battle against a literal ton of speeding Hummer and the very laws physics themselves. He will be missed".
After a fatal car crash in Maine, the obituary reads, "Jeffrey lost his battle against a literal ton of speeding Hummer and the very laws physics themselves. He will be missed".
That hummer sure didn’t missed him?
Hummer don’t give a frig.
Whereas here in Florida, "Jeff passed away after an encounter with an alligator that Jeff had been feeding with methamphetamine-laced marshmallows."
I’d rather lose the battle than succumb.
Jeffery tragically succumbed to the laws of physics
The video of his battle will be featured on /r/idiotsfightingthings
I want to see a literal ton of the laws of physics.
This was extremely new to me.
he will be mist
Don't be ridiculous, a Hummer weighs at least 5 tons.
A speeding hummer eh... ԅ(≖‿≖ԅ)
I died in a car crash and I find this funny
I thought that one was really sad because of the opioid crisis. Yes, it could be about other illnesses. But that’s the first thing that came to my mind
In my experience obituaries never say someone died of an OD, and I know a lot of people who've died of ODs. Being in Florida, if a 22-year-old "passed away" with no explanation they died of an OD. You kinda have to read between the lines on that one as most families consider it shameful.
Same with suicides.
Same with most deaths. Hospice nurse here and families don’t regularly mention us either. We’re a death denying society and it’s even hard for families to talk about the beautiful and natural passings.
That seems really strange to me. Here in Ireland, you'll often hear or see 'donations to the Irish Cancer Society/local hospice in lieu of flowers' in death notices and obituaries. Sometimes the hospice staff do get thanked but that's usually reserved for the eulogy.
Don’t get me wrong; That does happen here too- but not the majority, or as often as it could. The “in lieu of flowers” conversation is asked by the funeral director who usually coordinates the obits and often families are really raw. Nevertheless, Death is beautiful sometimes and isn’t respected or acknowledged as openly as it should imho. And I glad to know it’s happening more often in Ireland.
We're very open about death to say the very least of it. It can sometimes freak out visitors, particularly those American and English people not used to open caskets and wakes and the like. Or the more bizarre and intimidating customs like stopping all the clocks, covering all the mirrors, and closing all the curtains in the family home.
You've a difficult job, if sometimes rewarding one, from what I've seen of hospices. Do you have anything like Daffodil Day?
So all of the things you mentioned are traditions here in Appalachia: wakes, open casket, covering mirrors, closing curtains. Specifically, I’m in West Virginia where our euphemism on the map is “went home.” I’ve always heard that our funerary customs are hold overs from our Scots-Irish roots.
My mother's side of the family is all second and third generation Irish American and my Dad was a West Virginian. Shortly after I got with my wife I had like five funerals in one year and she went with me. They were all open casket. Her family's South African from a Calvinist church. She'd never seen a dead body before and she saw nearly half a dozen in less than a year. It freaked her out, to say the least.
Haha. Born and raised here in WV. I never thought open casket was unusual until this post :)
Went to a funeral down in Louisiana for my great grandmother, and it was much more the open casket/public wake type of deal. Then again Louisiana is a different beast culture wise in many ways, especially with many graves being above ground rather than buried.
Hey, thanks for doing what you do. I suspect your job is one of the hardest in the world, and it is so necessary and under appreciated.
One of my classmates' read "lost her battle with depression"
60 years later: Zandonus lost his battle with his heart.
She committed suicide. Brandy ODed and died.
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to fall, Crop circles in the carpet, sinking, feeling.
A friend of mine lost his battle with depression last Saturday. I've faced one too many of these lately.
I once saw an odd one: An obituary for a 21-year-old (who I was vaguely acquainted with online), which gave no cause of death, but said at the end that donations should be sent to a mental health charity in lieu of flowers. Perhaps he didn't die of suicide, but that was the obvious reading, and it made me question why they didn't just outright say it, since they didn't seem to associate much stigma with it. But grief does strange things to us, I guess.
They did.
That's what that means.
I lost an ex-boyfriends/best friend to a OD almost two years ago, and the one thing his mom did gave me so much respect for her. In his obituary she wrote plainly about his struggles with alcoholism and opioids and that he died of an OD, and in lieu of flowers or an expensive funeral we held an OD Awareness walk in our hometown and ended up raising $20,000 for various charities. I’ll miss him for the rest of my life, but I’m glad we were able to bring a little meaning to his passing and help others that are in a situation like his, even if only a little.
Or suicide. Shame+potential loss of life-insurance pay-out. Any plausibility of misadventure/accident will be preferred over a high probability of suicide.
Indeed, if OD is the suicidal method, that's the case where survivors have the most incentive to promote the OD narrative--since it's the easiest method to portray/regard as accidental.
If the words "long" and "struggle" are mentioned, in the absence of clinically diagnostic terms, it's probably one of these.
I think “Lost her battle with cancer” is more likely.
Has a little to do with that, but I think it more reflects how Mainers perceive themselves as unrelenting even in facing death. It's a pride thing. Source: am Mainer.
Also a Mainer, I would argue that it's because we have the oldest population in the country so we have lots of folks dying from illnesses and disease in their older years.
http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2017/07/new_england_now_home_to_oldest_residents_in_america_census_data_shows.html
Couple that with high rates of poverty and brutal winters and I imagine shit like, "Verna lost her battle to pneumonia," is quite common.
This. Grew up in Maine. When I see the words “lost her battle”, the next words in my head are “to cancer”.
I could see that Mainers might pride themselves at unrelenting in perceived exclusivity, but unfortunately "Lost battle" is common nationally.
The thing about Maine you have to understand is, as a dude who commented previously pointed out, the people of Maine are really old. Like really really old. Old mindsets die hard, and so do the people up. The term isn't exclusive, but if you met the elderly folks up here you'd understand what I mean.
The thing about literally everywhere else in the United States you have to understand is, as statistics point out, the people all over the country are really old. Like really really old. Old mindsets die hard and so do the people literally everywhere in the US. The term isn't exclusive, but if you met the elderly folks literally anywhere you'd understand what I mean.
TIL that Maine ranks 25th in national life expectancy, but is second only to Florida in percentage of population over 65 years old, followed by West Virginia and Vermont.
Off topic but congrats on the lobster emoji!
Never understood why Mainers don’t call yourselves “Maine Men”