Whistlin' through the obits

Heavy on the elderly and the tragic, the daily obituaries are no longer leisure reading as my owe life goes on.
I can’t skip them. The eye always moves directly to the age, or the photo if it depicts a child or anyone else too young for those pages. Often, it is merely a glory days photo of someone who died in their golden years.

But those last weekend it was an elementary-age boy who attended the MRDD program like my brother. Then came the 26-year old man whose scant paragraphs mentioned nothing about his passing. People at that age don't die of natural causes.
People at older ages don't either – a friend of mine died earlier at this summer at age 47 and an autopsy revealed his suspect heart attack came about because he popped methadone for the first time on his life’s last night. It stopped his heart. He died a careless, unnecessary death and I still don't know how to feel about that.

Subjects and sources from stories past come into play. A few years ago, I read the last words on a minister I interviews in 2001 as he celebrated his 60th year in the ministry. He asked for copies of the story and as so often happens, new deadlines swept away the vestiges of previous weeks, so I never delivered.

The worst obits don't deal with age; they're the ones that show a person survived by no one.

Back when I first started reading them, I stumbled upon a short write-up on a man who spent most of his life in a group home and later a retirement center.
Only deceased parents and siblings were mentioned. Outliving everyone who cares about me is not a life goal, and only reinforces the need for new friends at all times.

There might be something morbid in wanting to know more about complete strangers after their deaths. The brief details laid out in tiny newspaper print don't provide a picture so much as a corner torn off a snapshot. Maybe the daily dose of mortality just keeps me honest.