Late one summer, as a favor, I filled in for our obit writer while he was on vacation. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Perhaps that’s the wrong word. It wasn’t enjoyment so much as fascination, as intensity. There was—is—a meaning to the writing of an obituary that transcends the filing of a daily news story. Whole lives. I found it strangely life-affirming, oddly thrilling, this thing where you tried, if only briefly, to capture the essence of someone’s life.
