I felt like I was in an Indie film

Our department at the Lincoln Journal Star handles the obituaries among other things. I had a really interesting moment the other day with a middle-aged lady who writes obituaries for us. I was standing beside the fax machine waiting for a copy and she came up beside me.

Obit Lady: "I am a horrible person"


Me: " Why?"


OL: "Because I get these obituary requests, and I just laugh at them. I mean, I laugh at these dead people."

Me: "oh"

OL: "I mean, just the other day. I got an obit for a lady with the last name "Coffin" and I just couldn't stop laughing. I just kept laughin' and laughin' "


Me: "Oh...really" (seriously, what do you say?)


OL: "And then there is this" (she shows me a picture of a lady, recently deceased. It was an obit that I had just handed her from the fax machine.) "Look at this lady, she has this ridiculous red lipstick on....(she trails off) I mean she looks like my Grandma."


Then she sat back down at her desk.

Life as a tragicomedy. This lady works full time with us, so she is writing about dead people, seeing their pictures, and talking to their families for 40 hours every week. Her situation is understandable, she must find humor in her everyday life just like the rest of us. In general, though, its strange how the things that hurt us the most also have the ability to make us laugh the hardest. Some people say that we have to laugh to shield ourselves from the reality of completely harsh world. Obviously, I don't think that our situation is that hopeless. But the reality is that we live in a broken world, so I can certainly relate.