A recent obituary sent to SooToday through a local funeral home has reignited a debate about how to deal with the phenomenon of people with strained relationships being responsible for remembering those who are lost.
The obituary for Mario Greco, who died on Jan. 25, was posted with no birth date and no family information, two things that are typical on a death notice.
”While it is customary to remember and honour the lives of those who have left us, it is important to acknowledge the impact they had, even if it was not always positive,” the obituary reads.
It continues: “Mario was known for their abrasive personality and their knack for making others feel uncomfortable. They had a unique talent for pushing people's buttons and causing unnecessary strife. Their actions often left a trail of hurt feelings and strained relationships in their wake.”
SooToday reached out to the funeral home to ask if the next of kin would be interested in expanding on the reasons for the brutally honest obituary. His children Jesse and Marnie, who wrote the obituary, agreed to speak about their decision to write a non-traditional obituary, on the condition their last names not be used.
“We want people to know the truth about the type of man that he was,” Jesse wrote in an email. “It was a lifetime of poor choices, not taking responsibility for your actions, blaming others. He was not an honourable man and did not treat people with kindness and respect.”
Marnie said by email that her father had been void in their lives and an ineffective parent. As next of kin, they became responsible for medical decisions as he neared death and were tasked with how to remember him after he died.
She said most people probably didn’t know the family’s darkness.
“The idea of an obit was a struggle,” said Marnie. "To express our sadness? We weren’t. To share values and accomplishments? There weren’t any. To list family members? He either didn’t know them or others removed themselves from his life. So why bother?”
“While we could [have not] written one at all we decided to move forward as we did feel the notice of his death was necessary,” she added.
Marnie and Jesse said they are two of Greco’s four children. He had a large family and three surviving siblings. He was 79 years old at the time of his death with very few visitors during his final six weeks in hospital.
The notices that appear on the obituary pages of SooToday and other Village Media websites are independently produced. They are typically created or approved by someone in charge of the estate of the person who has died and then sent to the site through a funeral home.
A recent Village Media poll showed readers are split right down the middle on how honestly obituaries should be written. Almost exactly half of those who responded said an obituary should be blunt and truthful, even if it is painful.
The SooToday comment section on the obituary was shut off Monday morning due to numerous postings that had to be moderated. Before it was closed, numerous commenters ended up on either side of the debate, between not speaking ill of the dead and the freedom to speak your own personal truth.
”I loved Mario and am so sad to hear of his passing. He had such a unique personality and I feel honoured to have known him. I showed him kindness and compassion, and he showed me the same,” wrote one person. ”We challenged each other's beliefs, talked about cooking delicious foods, laughed about the craziness of the world, and ultimately saw the goodness in one another. I will remember him fondly.”
Reached for comment for this story, that person who wrote that comment asked not to be identified but offered the following: ”He [Greco] was certainly an interesting character and clearly someone was very affected by him. But this speaks for that one person. Their story does not embody the collective truth of this man's life.”
”This was written carefully and with true honesty. I respect this greatly,” wrote another commenter.
Marnie said society has created accepted expectations when people die that are not always true, and she wanted to leave a lesson within the lines of the obituary.
"In the end, Mario's passing serves as a reminder of the importance of kindness and empathy," the family wrote in the obituary. "It is a call to action for all of us to strive to be better, to treat others with respect and compassion, and to learn from the mistakes of those who came before us."
”Why sugar coat just because society has an expectation?” she said in her email to SooToday. ”Most that are complaining may also not be skilled enough to interpret the obit as it was meant — an awakening to reality.”
“Strangely enough I have received more positive reactions than not,” she added. ”In fact, a friend thanked me as she is in a similar situation and realized it’s ok to be tastefully honest. That’s says volumes.”
