Happily Ever After and RIP

destinations. My one wedding was on a golf course, so a girl needs a fantasy. Wedding announcements have been replaced with excessive food reporting. Where did all the girls go? Online, of course; social media is the new wedding information gage, but I have no time to find a feed and get nosey.

In a sign of the aging times, what has increased in the publication is the rest in peace reporting. There comes a time and place when obituaries replaced the news of new lives, starting out with this was your life reading. The interpersonal Sunday read is filled with 11% of people I have some distant connection with, 4% of people I actually knew, 40% of people who did not want to leave too much money to their heirs and spent it on a way too long end of life eulogy, and 45% on folks who lived fascinating everyday lives. As I inch closer to posting my own RIP, I find myself studying obituaries just as I studied the bridal news.

The first question is photo or no photo? If you have a photo, do you use your best in life headshot or go out with one that actually shows your age appropriate face? Next, what information is actually of interest to folks with dull Sunday mornings nosing around strangers past lives? Does anyone really need to know your scout history, hobbies, love of animals, and bowling average? The preceded in death list is interesting but creepy when a 90 year old announces their parents preceded them in death. Sometimes the obvious should RIP. If folks know you enjoyed multiple relationships in your wild lifetime, who do you include and who do you ghost— literally?

The Covid trend of online funeral participation continues. I have never logged on to a live, not in person service because I usually get distracted by something else on The Goggle and forget why I got online in the first place. I am just distressed this is now actually a thing to do. Reading the who, what, where of services is just like scanning wedding reception locations and honeymoon destinations. The times may have changed, but I am slow to the party.

The best way to handle both wedding and death announcements is to follow my friend, Greg’s, technique. I missed his wedding, so when I visited them a short time after the celebration, he handed me his wedding announcement. It was full of accomplishments I never knew he attained. When I looked at him in disbelief and he burst out laughing. None of it was true but he wanted to entertain the random reader back in the day. He used the same misinformation in his RIP only the embellishment was much grander in a life well lived in his fantasy world. He was just ahead of internet misinformation.

RIP to information as we knew it in the past (and wedding announcements). Time to embrace my devices for news. sports and those who enjoyed a life well lived.