Writing and Publishing Obituaries That Actually Mean Something
Obituaries are usually a rushed exercise in checking boxes. Family members are grieving, the funeral home is on the clock, and the deadline is rigid. The result is often a bland list of survivors and dates that reads the same way whether it's about a postal worker or a surgeon. I've written dozens of these over the years, and I've watched the difference between a forgettable announcement and something people actually keep meaningful. Crespo and Jirrels were two people who understood that an obituary does not have to be a formal declaration. Their recent obituaries stood out because they captured the texture of what those individuals actually were like. Not just their jobs or their family trees, but the specific habits, quirks, and contributions that made them recognizable to the people who knew them. I found myself returning to those pieces more than once because they felt honest rather than templated. The standard approach most funeral homes push is a form you fill out. Name, birth date, death date, surviving relatives, service time, donations suggestion. It's efficient. It's also nearly invisible after you read it. The people writing the Crespo and Jirrels obituaries took a different route. They treated the format as a container for actual memory rather than a bureaucracy to satisfy.
What Makes an Obituary Worth Reading
Specificity is the thing most people miss. A generic obituary says someone was "a loving husband and father." An obituary that lands says he taught his daughter to change the oil in his '98 Civic every spring and that she still does it for her own car. One detail like that carries more weight than three paragraphs of adjectives. It gives the reader something concrete to hold onto. I learned this the hard way when I was helping a client write his mother's obituary. We started with the standard template. It was clean, proper, and utterly forgettable. Then we sat down and listed everything she did every single Tuesday for thirty years. She volunteered at the community garden, yes, but she also organized the seed swap at the back of the room and kept a handwritten ledger of who owed whom. That ledger detail ended up in the final piece and became the line people quoted back to us afterward. It was the thing that made her feel present again.
The Practical Process
Start by gathering the raw material before you touch a template. Call people who knew the deceased and ask for one specific story, not a general impression. "Tell me about a time they got into trouble" works better than "Tell me what they were like." The trouble stories are usually the honest ones. Write a first draft without worrying about length or propriety. Get the details down. Then strip it. Remove every adjective that could describe anyone. Remove dates that don't serve the narrative. Keep the names of close family because that's functionally required, but treat the rest as optional. Most obituaries are twice as long as they need to be. Submit to the newspaper if you want the printed version, but publish the full text on a personal site or social channel first. Newspapers often charge by the line or by the ounce. They will cut your piece if it runs long, and they will cut the good parts first. A digital copy ensures the complete version survives.
Get the Full Details
A Common Pitfall and How to Avoid It
The biggest mistake I see is the over-correction toward formal language. Families worry about offending someone by including too much personality, so they sand everything down until there is nothing left. You do not need permission to write about a real human being. If the deceased had a sense of humor, say so. If they were stubborn, say that too. People who knew them will recognize the truth in it, and people who did not know them will understand the shape of who they were. Another issue is the donation placeholder. Every obituary seems to end with "In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to..." followed by a generic foundation. Pick something specific to the person. If they loved birds, give to a local Audubon chapter. If they fought addiction and recovered, give to a peer support program. The gesture matters less than the connection.
Why This Matters Beyond the Immediate Funeral
Obituaries become part of the historical record. Not in the grand sense, but in the small one. Ten years from now, someone will look back and read that piece to understand what life was like for the person in question. The details you include now are the only evidence that remains. Generic language fails that test. Specific memory passes it. The obituaries for Crespo and Jirrels did exactly this. They gave future readers a sense of the people behind the names. That is the only thing an obituary needs to do right. Everything else is paperwork.
