The ultimate obituary

Young reporters and editors don't work for a newspaper very long before they learn the importance of obituaries. Nothing in the newspaper connects so closely with readers. Many old-timers who were in the business before email and fax machines can recall having to interrupt work on all their oh-so-important front page story to take dictation from a funeral director calling in an obit.
And while some obituary editors deal with as many as dozens of obits a newspaper edition, the good ones keep in mind that it may be the only obituary the family of the person in that obituary ever deals with, so they're handled with care.
And there's a beauty to every obituary -- every person's life is truly a story, even if it's laid out in a seven-inch newspaper column or life facts. It's easy to see the life behind those facts. Some newspapers go the extra mile -- the Boston Globe is really good at this -- and take an obituary of a "regular person" and interview loved ones and make a story out of it.
But despite all this, most obituaries follow a familiar trajectory using familiar language and phrases. Born, schooling, jobs, organizations, avid bingo player, hunter or Red Sox fan. Family members. Funeral information.
Some newspapers, now that it's the norm to charge for obituaries, give the families more leeway in how it's worded or what's said.
Occasionally one will make the reader smile. For instance, Marianne Perry's obituary in a recent issue of the Morning Sentinel, Waterville, Maine's newspaper, said she passed away surrounded by her loving family "and her devoted cat, Wiggles." Readers later learned she liked to rescue stray cats, including the devoted Wiggles.
But even with more flexible standards, rarely does an obituary stay with someone who didn't know the person.
Recently, however, one appeared in the Morning Sentinel that was stunning in its simplicity. While it had few of the elements that a standard obituary has, it told its story so well it bears repeating here:

Stephen Carl Coleman, 59, loving husband of Sarah, and very proud father of Thomas, Tennie and Rachel, passed away Sept. 20, 2011, on Wood Pond in Attean Township. Steve was nearly in sight of his float plane, Coleman's Knoll and the hill he made his home, enjoying a calm day. He left home early in the morning, got some work done, saw some friends, purchased a coffee and then passed quickly. Steve accomplished more than most in his life, but most importantly he loved his wife, children, family and friends and did it well. In return he was loved and deeply respected by all, even when they didn't agree. Those who knew him will never forget him, and many will aspire to match him in many, many fields of endeavor.

A casual memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 27, in his hangar, at his home, 859 Main St. in Dennistown. All are welcome to attend to reminisce and celebrate Steve's life.

In lieu of flowers, donations will be accepted towards a scholarship to benefit local students, aspiring pilots and the Jackman region in general. Please send donations to: Steve Coleman Memorial Scholarship Fund, c/o SAD 12/RSU 82, 606 Main St., Jackman, ME 04945.

(Morning Sentinel, Waterville, Maine, Sept. 24)

Steve Coleman had died in a drowning accident. He was running for county commission and was well-known in the area. A news story when he died left no doubt he was an accomplished person who had done much for his community, had been involved in many organizations.

There were few details about his life -- those pedigree details by which we often define ourselves -- instead simply a remarkably dignified and beautiful message about who this man was. 
And what better purpose for an obituary?

This is NOT ABOUT Casey Anthony...

In eight horrific days in our remote section of the world, six people died as the result of domestic violence.

On June 6, in Winslow, Maine, Nathaniel Gordon chased his wife, Sarah, down the street before shooting her in front of the neighbors and the couple’s two kids, aged eight and nine.

On June 14, in Dexter, Maine, Steven Lake killed his wife, Amy, and their two kids, Coty, 13, and Monica, 12.

Both men shot themselves when confronted by police.

Meanwhile, America was obsessed coast to coast with the circus that was the media “coverage” of the Casey Anthony trial.

I don’t have to tell you who Casey Anthony is — you know. She’s the young woman from Florida with the less-than-charming personality and a penchant for lying, who may or may not have killed her child.

I bet, though, you didn’t know who Nathaniel Gordon and Steven Lake were.

In 2008, the last year that statistics are available from the U.S. Census bureau, 1,502 children under the age of 18 were killed in America. That’s four or more a day.

In 2007, some 530,564 women were the victim of a violent crime by their partner. In that year 1,185 women were murdered by their partners in the U.S. (For those of you who believe the finger of shame is too often pointed at men in domestic violence, the same document shows about 82,000 men were the victim of violent acts by their partners and 382 men victims of homicide.)

Shortly after the crimes in Winslow and Dexter took place some stand-up men in Waterville, Maine, held a rally and press conference begging men to be involved in the solution to domestic violence, which is too often – in fact, almost always – considered a “women’s issue.”

Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said stopping domestic violence is everyone’s problem and men have to get involved in solving it.

“I call on the men individually, collectively. You need to step up to the plate,” he said.

But the best quotes from the rally came from a woman, Karen Heck, a co-creator of the group Hardy Girls, Healthy Women.

Forget best quote of the rally. She had one of the best quotes of the year. Maybe the decade.

“I'm sick and tired of waking up in the morning to news that more women and children have been killed by men who were supposed to have loved them.”

She added that “we must commit to changing the discussion from ‘why doesn't she leave?’ to ‘why does he abuse?’”

And finished with, “Let me be clear: men who love the members of their families do not kill them. No matter how clearly I say that though, our culture chooses not to listen to the voices of women.”

It was powerful stuff, covered heavily in the two newspapers, the Morning Sentinel of Waterville and the Kennebec Journal of Augusta. (Full disclosure: I work for both).

About 75 people attended, which most agreed was a good number.

The next morning, there was a memorial service for the three victims of Steven Lake.

About 1,000 people attended. It was covered on statewide TV, and several other out-of-state TV stations.

Lots of tears, lots of outrage.

Who knew Amy, Coty and Monica had so many friends?

And meanwhile, millions of Americans across the country were glued to their TVs, railing against Casey Anthony.

I don’t have to remind you who she is — the annoying young lady from Florida who lies, likes to party and may or may not have killed her young daughter.

Casey Anthony was found not guilty of killing her child July 5.

Last week, nearly a month after the verdict, news made national headlines that Casey Anthony, according to a poll, is the most hated woman in America.

The Lake and Gordon cases faded away pretty quickly, even here in Central Maine.

Two men who gunned down the mothers of their children in cold blood, and in one case, the children themselves, will not go down in history, even in our little corner of the world, as “most hated.”

Sure, people who knew and loved their victims will be scarred for life by it. And no one will blame them if they carry that burden of hate.

But for everyone else, It’s pretty much too bad, so sad.

It was a lot of fun going to the memorial service. Vigils are great. We can all cry and talk about the children and feel that self-righteous indignation. So next time something like this happens, and there will be a next time, we’ll get out the vigil candles and the sad faces and look for the TV cameras.

Rallies about the problems that lead to these happening? Not so much fun. Borrrrring. A bunch of stiff people spouting statistics. Yawn.

Karen Heck’s quotes, which were more insightful, to the point and powerful that probably 99 percent of the idiotic verbiage that clogged up the airwaves and Internet before, during and after the Casey Anthony trial, made the front pages of a few tiny newspapers and then were done.

It’s just not that interesting, right?

I know, I know. The last thing people want is one of those pompous “care about this, not that” screeds. Don’t read People, read The New Yorker. Don’t buy a Snickers bar when children are starving. Blah blah blah.

We’ll feel strongly about what we want to. The fun things.

We’ll reserve our strongest emotions for the next time Nancy Grace or some other TV talking head that’s part of the huge multi-billion dollar entertainment conglomerate designed to keep Americans from thinking for themselves tells us it’s time to hate someone again.

But just take the time for a minute to consider this:

Hate for another human being is never a very useful emotion. It saps a person’s energy without ever making a situation better.

When it’s for a human being you don’t even know, who has nothing to do with your life — for instance, Casey Anthony — it’s not only useless, it’s ridiculous and self-indulgent.

Imagine what could happen if all that energy that this country spent hating Casey Anthony — in fact, is still spending despite the fact that there was no evidence against her and the prosecution couldn’t prove its case and she was found not guilty — could be channeled into actually addressing the issues that lead people to kill their children.

And the mothers of their children.

A lesson in journalism

Mark Henderson died Sunday.
I shouldn't be surprised, I knew it was coming. Not like Amy Winehouse I-knew-it-was-coming, but he had terminal cancer and had been told his days were numbered.
But I had something to give Mark, and I hadn't gotten around to it.

In April, a publisher asked me to write a book called The Afterlife Survey. It's a sampling of a bunch of different peoples' views on the afterlife, loosely hinged on a Pew Forum survey that said 74 percent of Americans believed in an afterlife.
They wanted a sample chapter from me immediately. This was a great opportunity, but had come at the wrong time -- I'd just been offered, and accepted, a perfect job back in my home state. I was getting ready to move, getting my house ready to sell, mentally preparing myself for a new job with new duties. But I knew it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
And I knew if anyone could bail me out, it was Mark. We were acquaintances. Facebook friends. Introduced by my sister a few years before when he was chaplain of the hospital she worked at. We had similar political views and both liked to talk -- she thought we'd hit it off.
We never really got to know each other well. We had one of those twenty-first century electronic acquaintanceships.
But I knew Mark had beat serious cancer a few years ago only to recently have it come back. I knew he was a minister, with a master's in divinity from Boston University, who had some intriguing views on religion. I knew that if anyone had some serious beliefs about an afterlife and would be willing to share them in a completely out of the blue request by someone he didn't know that well, it would be Mark.
And I was right. Not only did he say yes, but he embraced the idea.
I knew he was once again dealing with cancer, and he told me that is was terminal.
And he said, "So the idea of addressing questions about the nature of the 'apres vie' is not only something that I'd love to do as an intellectual exercise, drawing on my years of reflection/reading on the subject combined with my fairly vast experience dealing with death and dying, but something that is immediate and personal. I really see this wonderful coincidence as an opportunity to leave something of a legacy behind."

Some friends were stunned that I'd asked him. Wasn't it a little inappropriate? A little insensitive?
But that's what we do as journalists. We ask questions other people don't, or won't, and hopefully get some answers.
Not only did I know Mark would be okay with me asking, but I also thought, what kind of afterlife book would it be if I didn't survey someone staring down death's barrel?
And to top it off, it turns out that he was no longer a minister. He was now an atheist and didn't believe there was an afterlife.
He definitely had to be in the book.
So I sent my surveys out. Forty or 50 or so. I put an early deadline on them, hoping to get enough back to start writing the book.
The day before the deadline, in early May, I got an email from Mark. He wasn't doing so great and while he was still committed to taking part, didn't think he could make the deadline.
No problem, I emailed back. Take your time. If you're too weak to answer the questions, write out an essay based on them or something. Anything. Whatever you want.
I didn't hear back.
The days passed, my June 15 deadline for finishing the book neared, and still nothing from Mark.
I'd received a lot of great survey responses. Poignant, thoughtful. Some laugh-out-loud-funny. From people who practiced religion and people who didn't. From fundamentalist Christians and from atheists. A priest, a rabbi, a funeral director.
But I really, really wanted that survey from the guy who was dying, and knew there was nothing beyond that.
So in early June, after a lot of back and forth in my head about whether I really should, and checking Facebook to make sure he'd had recent posts so was still, presumably, healthy, I emailed him again. I apologized profusely if it was a bad time for him, but said I knew how much he wanted to take part. I wanted to be sure he knew I still wanted to have him.
But I didn't get an answer. I resigned myself to not having him, to the fact he was too sick, and this project just wasn't a priority.
But three days before the deadline, he answered. He'd been in the hospital -- his wife had been told he wouldn't make their anniversary (which was, in a jolting coincidence, the day I'd emailed him).
He didn't think he could answer the survey in writing -- he was having too much trouble focusing because of his meds. But he was willing to do it over the phone.
So the morning before the book was due, I got up early, brewed a pot of coffee, and gave him a call.
I'd assured him it would take half an hour, tops. We were on the phone for two hours.
And he was funny and articulate. He made sense. He was reasoned and passionate.
And he talked about measuring the days. How he'd rented a TV series, thinking he'd seen the whole thing, only to be find out part six was coming out Aug. 6. .
"And I wonder, 'will I be around to see it?' It gives me something to shoot for." And he said that with a laugh. And it struck me -- this is a guy who honestly doesn't know if he will be alive Aug. 6.
And while everyone trots out that tired old cliche about living each day like it is your last, the reality of it never really struck me until that moment.
And yet Mark could laugh about it.


I realized at the time it was the best interview I'd ever had in my 30 years in journalism -- someone who was being completely honest, opening his heart and his guts, making sure that I understood his point.
As a reporter, I've always favored the conversational interview technique, rather than the firing questions technique. So Mark and I had a long conversation. And he blew me away.
He was excited about the book. He felt it was his legacy. He felt he'd been given a big opportunity to say something. That it was a wonderful coincidence that my opportunity and his opportunity collided.
I dedicated the book to him and made plans to send him an early bound galley. I didn't tell him about the dedication, I wanted it to be a surprise.
I couldn't wait for him to see it. Couldn't wait to unveil the big surprise.
And then my sister sent me a simple text today: "Mark H. died yesterday."
I won't insult him further by saying he's "up there" somewhere, seeing all this play out and appreciating the role he played.
But if I've learned anything, it's this: Journalism is a funny thing.
A bunch of barely qualified talking heads on TV can inflame a nation about a woman (one of thousands every year) who may or may not have killed her child. Where people running for president of the United States can't get their simple facts right, but no one seems to think it matters and no one holds their feet to the fire on it.
Where if something can't be said in 146 characters, it's not really worth listening to.
It's not a world where many people will pay attention to the thoughts, given over a two-hour interview, of a dying man musing on the nature of god, an afterlife, and humanity in general.
Mark scoffed when I said what he was doing was noble. He said noble had nothing to do with it. There was nothing courageous about it. But this was all he had. There was nothing left. And he wanted to go out of this world being understood.
He didn't know me that well. We'd had one long, beer-fueled night talking a few years ago. Some back and forths on Facebook since.
But he knew I'm a journalist, so he trusted me to get it said.
I hope I did him justice.
And if any of us need a reminder about what journalism is -- I know I do these days -- that is it.

Vapidly ever after...

People love a fairytale. I don't have to elaborate on why -- we all know it's got to do with our fantasies being a lot more fun and pleasant than reality in a lot of cases.
But the problem is, the fairytale is the template for reality.
Take, for instance, the recent royal wedding. The amount of excitement this generated was way beyond anything that the tale of two young people -- much richer and, at least in the girl's case, better looking than anyone deserves to be -- getting married should generate.
The gushing cliches that accompanied it, not only from magazines that you'd expect that kind of thing from, but from TV news, newspapers, and other mainstream news sources, were nausea-inducing.
This all came to mind again this week when I was thumbing through People magazine and came across the incredibly substance-less, trite and downright bizarre when you think about it story of the "fairytale" engagement of Kim Kardashian, famous for simply being famous, and NBA star Kris Humphries.
The whole thing was "a dream come true"!
The 20-plus-carat ring brings this line from People: Kardashian had "long dreamed of the perfect man -- and the perfect ring"!
They had an engagement party that rivaled a state dinner to celebrate Kim's "Cinderella moment" (People's words, not mine). This was chronicled over several pages in the magazine, complete with photos of the proposal being spelled out in rose petals on the living room rug and the "princess themed" cake that cost thousands of dollars.
Now, I know it's People magazine and not The New Yorker. But I'd say People mirrors our attitudes as a society a whole lot more than probably any other popular publication.
And so, there we have it: a very rich young lady who is a "reality show" star with a B-list famous late dad (OJ Simpson lawyer Robert Kardashian) and B-list famous step dad (Olympian Bruce Jenner) and an NBA star.
They've known each other since November so they "took the right amount of time and made sure it was right," according to Kardashian.
He asked her step-father's permission to marry her.
She has "always dreamed of a big wedding" so will "do something really over-the-top."
Now a lot of people may be saying, "Yeah, so? Sounds really romantic to me."
And that's the issue -- we are programmed to think all this is just great. Particularly women.
"Every little girl dreams of being a princess and marrying a handsome prince."
I heard that phrase so many times before, during, and after the royal wedding I was ready to go looking for a prince and princess and stick of TNT.

And Kardashian. Cinderella? Guess again. More like one of the stepsisters -- rich, privileged, and entitled.
He asks her dad for her hand. Why? She's a grown woman.
Oh, but it's so romantic.
And she's dreamed of such a perfect engagement.
How about teaching little girls, and bigger ones for that matter, and maybe even the fellas, that instead of dreaming of weddings, spelling out proposals in rose petals, pretending to be princesses, we dream of a perfect marriage with equal partners who discuss their values, expectations and yes, dreams, before taking the plunge. 
The guy asks the dad for her hand instead of the two adults sitting down and discussing -- seriously -- what kind of life they expect to have with each other.
Every girl dreams of being a princess.
And that's the problem. No one dreams of a perfect marriage. Just the engagement. Just the wedding.
All that hype the royal wedding got never talked about the royal marriage, except maybe to speculate on where they would live. How about girls dreaming of being strong, independent people who know what they want out of life and achieving it on their own merits?
So the Kardashian story is another example of  the fluff and superficiality that we like to base our beliefs on.
Cliches carry so much more weight than looking at something realistically, logically, and pragmatically.
And it carries over to the way we view the world around us.
People running for office mouth cliches that mean nothing, and everyone jumps on board because it is what every little taxpayer dreams of. But no one can really tell you what the substance is behind it. Or how we're REALLY going to run our government or country.
A horrible tragedy happens and everyone grabs a candle and goes to a vigil and says things like "no one deserves this" and vilifies the bad guy without maybe wondering what caused the whole thing to happen in the first place.
We care about the blond-haired, blue-eyed child who died because it's a big fairy tale to grab the candle, be on TV, cry for a child you don't know and be part of the fairytale that we live in a society that is divided into good and bad, princesses and evil stepsisters.
But what about all the other thousands of children in this country who are in equally precarious situations, and what about the circumstances that put them there? What about the things we support as a society that can cause so much damage to thousands of people, children, we don't even know?
Where's their candle? Their vigil?

Here's what we accept as true, good and romantic: A little girl dreams of the perfect wedding ring. The bigger the better.

What does that say about what we expect as a society, both of little girls and of ourselves?