Obituary bitching

I still subscribe to my hometown newspaper. I come from a tiny little town in the midwest, one very rooted in its church community, and the youth are eagerly waiting for Kevin Bacon to come teach them how to dance. I love the hometown newspaper (the Idiot Paper, if you will) because it lets me catch up on the town gossip despite no longer living there -- who's getting married, who's engaged, who got arrested, who had kids, etc. etc.

The obituaries are usually pretty boring, just because it's mostly old people and let's be honest, when someone's 87 when they die, you can just skim over the article because it's no real shock.

The best part, though, is the pictures. I swear to Christ, my high school senior portrait will be used in my obituary. I don't care if I am 102 -- my obituary will feature the young, supple 17-year-old me because damnit, I was hot. Sometimes you see the old people as they were in their most recent church directory photo. You get the idea.

Well this week I opened up the paper and let out a shocked/disgusted "GOO!!!!" There, in the middle of the page, was some woman I [surprisingly] didn't know, who had passed away from cancer. And her obituary photo was obviously taken in her last days. Hospital gown hanging off her emaciated frame, head bald from chemotherapy, looking tired and ready to move on to the next journey.

Please don't mistake this for me being insensitive. Okay, I'm probably being insensitive. Cancer is a horrible monster of a disease. That's not what I'm making fun of. But seriously? Is that SERIOUSLY the picture her husband/family felt most appropriate to post with her obituary? REALLY?

If I died of cancer and Dear Husband A -- I don't care HOW grief-stricken he would be -- put a picture of me in my last bald, emaciated days on earth in the paper, I would come back and haunt him every minute for the remainder of his life. And not the sweet dream-sequence hauntings of the cute old couples you hear about sometimes. "He came and sat next to me on the bed and smiled, and he was surrounded in light." NO. I would come back and make sure he knew how bad he'd screwed up. Forever. I'd probably continue to nag and remind him about it in the afterlife.

I would make sure my husband knew for all eternity what a grave mistake it was to put a picture like that in the paper for everyone to see and write blog posts about.

In other news, I've been thinking, I hope I at least look really hot in my bikini when I go to hell.