Daughter writes scathing obituary of con-man father.

[Hupriest]

I was just going through news articles yesterday and I came across this story.
http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/2014/0...could-accused/

Granted, the father would be described but most as scum for doing what he has done, but still, it just feels odd for me that the daughter was so candid with his obit. Which led me to the question of whether or not we should be as brutally honest when writing these when a love one pasts (as she was) or should we just mention the good things (like most obituaries)? What are your thoughts on this?

Link to the Obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/tim...?pid=171625687

[Orange Joe]

Not sure I would call it scathing. Just admitting his flaws.

[Deleted]

I swear to god, if someone writes one of those "Oh she was so great, a pillar of her community!" obits when I die, I'm haunting them. What's the point of being the best person you can be if any faults or flaws or good things or whatever all just get plastered over, smoothed and covered in white paint to be as inoffensive as possible at the end. Fuck thaaaat

[Cosmic Janitor]

Obituaries are like stand up comedy, you only did it right if the audience at least chuckles when you do them (read: talk so much bullshit, despite everyone knowing it not the be true). :P

[Laringar]

Which led me to the question of whether or not we should be as brutally honest when writing these when a love one pasts (as she was) or should we just mention the good things (like most obituaries)?

Part of that depends on whether you actually call the deceased a "loved one", I think.

(Edit: Hey, 50 posts! Not a grunt now!)

[therealbowser]

I don't see anything shocking or spiteful in this obituary, just being candid. He sounds like a shitty guy, but she didn't only point out the worst parts even then. Why is this special?

[Ebildays]

Who knows that maybe would have been the obit he would have wrote for himself. It reminds me of this mans obit

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sal...&pid=158526785

[Anakso]

It depends entirely on the person and on the person writing the obit, I'm personally a believer that someone dying doesn't mean we should suddenly assume they were great and awesome, and it's always annoyed me when the media does this. A celebrity can have nothing but bad things sad about them in certain papers/magazined and then they die and suddenly they were the best person that ever lived.

I believe in honesty, but to a point, this man seems like he was scum so such an obit suits him, however, if he was a good father and good man but had just made a couple of mistakes in his life, there would be no reason to include them in the obit.

But everyone's different, I don't think a precedent needs to be set for this at all. You ask 5 people to write an obit for the same person and you'll get 5 different obits, and that is fine.

[Gritches]

I'd say a scathing obituary is better than an untruthful one

[-aiko-]

Well, at least she is honest. When I went to my uncle's funeral last year it bugged me that people just made stuff up.

Still, I love my dad a lot so I dunno what I'd do if he were a con-man.

[Deleted]

I swear to god, if someone writes one of those "Oh she was so great, a pillar of her community!" obits when I die, I'm haunting them. What's the point of being the best person you can be if any faults or flaws or good things or whatever all just get plastered over, smoothed and covered in white paint to be as inoffensive as possible at the end. Fuck thaaaat

Think if I was described as a "pillar of the community", if the writer was honest they'd have to also say "not a very well designed pillar, cracked in a few places, should be thinner in the middle, and really, you could knock it down and the structure wouldn't suffer very much"

On a similar point, in England, if someone does something really stupid that gets them killed, like climbing over a spiked fence and getting impaled, there's a tendency for the English news media to put people on saying things like "it was such an avoidable tragedy", "this is the fault of the Council for not replacing these fences with less dangerous ones", "blame, blame, blame, compensation, blame".

If I died like that (not planning on it), I'd want them to be honest and say "what a fucking idiot, what kind of moron climbs over a spiked fence, was he drunk?" Don't imagine the BBC would use those exact words.

OT: She was quite candid, but that's fine by me. It's apparently wrong to speak ill of the dead, but I don't think he's in a position to mind anymore.

[Gheld]

And what she does next will surprise you! /facebooknewsfeedspam

[NYC17]

It depends entirely on the person and on the person writing the obit, I'm personally a believer that someone dying doesn't mean we should suddenly assume they were great and awesome, and it's always annoyed me when the media does this. A celebrity can have nothing but bad things sad about them in certain papers/magazined and then they die and suddenly they were the best person that ever lived.

I believe in honesty, but to a point, this man seems like he was scum so such an obit suits him, however, if he was a good father and good man but had just made a couple of mistakes in his life, there would be no reason to include them in the obit.

But everyone's different, I don't think a precedent needs to be set for this at all. You ask 5 people to write an obit for the same person and you'll get 5 different obits, and that is fine.

This pretty much sums it up. This obit seemed more like a snapshot of his life than a tribute. it just happened to be more honest and blunt than most.