I put the "bitch" in obituist. . .

So I'm an obituist. Seriously. That's the word for someone who writes obituaries. It's just one of my beats at the community newspaper where I work. I do education, kids pages and regular features, including cultural stuff like art and music and books.

Back to my life working on obituaries. It's not as morbid as it sounds. Come to think of it, probably being a mortician isn't as morbid as it sounds! It's a job. And it's one I take seriously.

Obituaries don't always get me down. Sometimes, in fact, they lift my spirits. If someone  has managed to live a decent amount of years and has, in that time, did much and enjoyed much, I do feel like the story is a celebration.

Working on an obituary gives you perspective. In fact, to quote "Spinal Tap," it's "too much! There's too much f&#@ing perspective now.

I have a friend, Brenda, who did the Courier obits before I took on the job. She once went to an obituary writer's conference in Las Vegas, Nevada and the obituists present were highly eccentric. There were had drinking cowboys and all manner of characters. Perhaps one day she will record her experience, because it would be a great story--even the backdrop for a movie or a mystery.

So sometimes I joke to my boss that I'm going to become very eccentric. I will wear a shawl and a cowboy hat and lots of turquoise, and when someone comes to my desk to talk about an obit, I will first let them know that "this is a safe place."

But while I can make a joke or two about my gig, I know it's a hard time for the bereaved. We work together and do it up right.

All of the names and all of the lives start to blend together for me sometimes. I've written about dozens of men who served in the military in World War II and then went to school on the GI Bill. I've written about homemakers and woman professors. I've written about people who have invented things, had 7 successful careers, helped break racial barriers, were openly gay, committed suicide.

But what doesn't blend together, what I do remember, is the little details. And because of this, I have come to the conclusion that the little things we do--our habits, our preferences, our small choices--are what is most important.

Little details I remember offhand from obituaries.

*She collected bells and was a member of the American Bell Association.

*She became a santeria priestess.

*When the family lost their cat in the middle of a move, he traveled 8,000  miles to retrieve the family pet.

*She and her husband enjoyed ballroom dancing.

*He met his wife when she was volunteering as a taxi dancer for World War II soldiers.

*He liked jazz, particularly Miles Davis.

*Anyone who visited her house left with a can of preserves.

*Being married to a career military man, she moved constantly throughout her life. But she always managed to make every place home.

*When a grandson asked his 100-year-old grandmother what it's like to have lived so long and seen so many changes, she said, "Oh honey, it just all went by so fast."

And today, I came across something that brought back a posthumous memory of my own grandmother, Bobbie McCarty. It was a "pin" on Pinterest featuring Edgar Allen Poe's "Annabel Lee." My mother has often told me how she loved to recite this poem, and it always made her cry. And she had a very musical voice--you've never heard anyone who said so many words in such an enthusiastic lilt. She covered every note in the musical scale.

And here, submitted for your approval, is the poem she so loved.

—Sarah Torribio (that's the attribution for this blog, not for the poem!)