I am an Obituary Addict

I admit it, I am an obituary addict. I scan the papers daily for someone who may have died that I know. But I don't stop there, I even had a funeral home email each time they get a new obituary typed up for the paper. Most people would think this was a strange pastime, and some may even be very critical of me thinking I am waiting for them to die.Many times I am using those obits for my genealogy research, and yes, more recent names and dates do help further my research.

But, I am also a funeral frequenter. Yes, that is right! An obituary addict AND a funeral frequenter. That's me. I have dragged my husband into this by getting him to frequent funerals with me until we have become some kind of a fixture at the funeral home.

How can you tell if you are a funeral frequenter? When you are friends with the funeral director and he knows you by name just because he sees you so often..... this would be a number one sign of a funeral frequenter. The number two sign is when you see the same people at each funeral and know that they are funeral frequenter's too.

Funeral's are a wonderful way to pay tribute to a person's life and while you are there you get to see and visit with many other relatives you have not seen in awhile. Stories are always told, tears shed and there is laughter too as we remember the good times.

Then of course there is the cemetery stalker. I think there is not a more peaceful place to be found than a cemetery. I could walk round those stones all day, and read them all. At each lonely, weed grown stone, I stop, pull away the weeds and say you are not forgotten today.

Death lurks at all our doors, we don't know when, how or where. I hope that when my time comes, someone is reading my life story in an obituary, attending my funeral, and stopping by to pull a few weeds from my grave.