Sunday, August 24, 2008

Can You Just Imagine?

This obituary showed up in the Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper. It's already been removed from the paper's website, but I've seriously never seen anything like it. Read on. Seriously, you won't believe your eyes.

Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. She will be met in the afterlife by her husband, Raymond, her son, Paul Jr., and daughter, Ruby.

She is survived by her daughters Marietta, Mitzi, Stella, Beatrice, Virginia and Ramona, and son Billy; grandchildren, Donnelle, Joe, Mitzie, Maria, Mario, Marty, Tynette, Tania, Leta, Alexandria, Tommy, Billy, Mathew, Raymond, Kenny, Javier, Lisa, Ashlie and Michael; great-grandchildren, Brendan, Joseph, Karissa, Jacob, Delaney, Shawn, Cienna, Bailey, Christian, Andre Jr., Andrea, Keith, Saeed, Nujaymah, Salma, Merissa, Emily, Jayci, Isabella, Samantha and Emily. I apologize if I missed anyone.

Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.

Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I hope she is finally at peace with herself. As for the rest of us left behind, I hope this is the beginning of a time of healing and learning to be a family again.

There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.


If you doubt the authenticity of this obituary, go here. I can't even imagine the anger and hurt this family has been through. I would absolutely be mortified if I thought my family thought of me that way.

J.

PS. I almost completely lifted this post from Amy over at Comments from the Peanut Gallery. I was so blown away by it.

9 comments:

Jan said...

Oh wow! Unbelievable! You know it doesn't matter how horrible a person is, I can't understand people being so publically verbal about this. It's just so disrespectful. It not only says a lot about her but about those she left behind as well. So sad.

Crys said...

wow, sad. i agree with tookie, too -- no matter how bad, you don't have to do THAT.

Shen-Shen said...

I wonder what kind of person Dolores was, to have incurred so much wrath.. She doesn't seem very pleasant, in any case, although I do think that perhaps they could have just.... not written her an obituary.

And I don't go back to school until next next week, so I've been pretty good! I'm not looking forward to college apps, is all.

Brother Dave said...

There is left no doubt as to how Dolores Aguilar's family felt about her. The upside is that Dolores was remembered quite strongly.

I agree with shen-shen, that "perhaps… not [writing] her an obituary" might have been the better choice.

Yet, did the writer imagine that Dolores' spirit would be looking over a daughter's shoulder to read the final slap in Dolores' face?

And were all the children in agreement about publishing this obit? Or was it a hatchet job by one disgruntled daughter?

Avitable said...

If I had a hated family member, I'd totally write an obituary like that. At least it's more interesting to read than the normal crap.

Sushiboy said...

ouch.... that Obit shows a total lack of class. I'm amazed that the writer took the time and money (you pay by the word or line) to print this diatribe but didn't even take the time to find out if he/she had gotten all the names of the family. Perhaps though she was doing them a favor if she forgot them. I wouldn't want my name printed along with this. I'd want no part of it.

e.Craig Crawford said...

I guess I'm in the minority here. I thought the obit was well written.

Probably more factual than some.

Here's to family dynamics.

Just Dave said...

If true, this is probably one of the saddest things I have ever read. As they say, sometimes one's purpose in life is to provide an example of what not to do.

Desert Diva said...

There's an old adage - "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." To write an obituary (and the paper printing it) was wrong on so many levels. The person who wrote it is "evil" in my opinion!