snopes.com: Dolores Aguilar Obituary

Claim: Family member runs caustic obituary about deceased parent.

Status: True.

Example: [Collected via e-mail, August 2008]

Dolores Aguilar 1929 - Aug. 7, 2008

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.

Origins: Most newspaper obituaries adhere to one of a handful of set formulas that incorporate listing the name of the deceased, date of passing, predeceasing and surviving relatives, and where and when services will be held. Some deviate from this standard by providing additional information about the departed, information that is almost always of a laudatory nature. However, every now and again one encounters a written send-off that is far from the expected loving expression of facts about the person who

died.

Such is the case with the obituary of Dolores Aguilar. The obituary of this 79-year-old woman ran on 16 and 17 August 2008 in in the Vallejo [California] Times-Herald. It was placed by one of the deceased's many daughters.

According to John Bogert of the Daily Breeze (a newspaper based in the South Bay area of Los Angeles), Dolores Aguilar's daughter was moved to place the notice after reviewing the obituary of a co-worker's father and noting as she read through it how little any of it fit her mother. "What struck me was how my mother was none of the things I was reading. She was never there for us, she was never good and she left no legacy. So how could I say any of the usual things about her?" said the daughter to Bogert. She and her siblings, she maintained, were kept "unfed, poorly clothed and completely terrorized."

Before agreeing to run the unusual obituary, the Times-Herald took the unusual step of requesting a copy of the death certificate, just to ensure that what it was being asked to publish wasn't a hoax. It wasn't: the woman being memorialized had passed away on 7 August 2008.

Barbara "gone but not forgotten" Mikkelson

Last updated: 21 August 2008

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Sources:

Bogert, John. "Death May Not Be Proud, But It Is Honest.": The Daily Breeze. 18 August 2008.