Obitchuary

When someone you love dies (or when you merely think about your own exit), do you freeze, fumble, or joke your way through it? In Obitchuary, Spencer Henry and Madison Reyes argue that humor, history, and hands-on know-how form a surprisingly powerful antidote to the fear and fog that often surround death. They contend that you can make better choices, grieve more honestly, and even find community by learning what really happens to bodies, funerals, obituaries, and the industries orbiting them—without turning away from the weird, the wild, or the downright WTF.

This isn’t a hushed etiquette manual. It’s a romp through the end of life—from what your body does in the hours and weeks after you die, to how to design a send-off that feels like you, to the way obituaries can stab, soothe, or side-eye one last time. You’ll meet professional mourners and funeral strippers, Victorian tear-catchers and coffin torpedoes, body-farm scientists and cadaver dogs, celebrity caskets and companion plots. And yes, you’ll read some deliciously scathing obits that double as moral fables about legacy and last words.

Why this matters (and why now)

We’re living through a quiet revolution in how we die and mourn. Cremation is now the American majority choice; green burials and memorial diamonds compete with embalming and mausoleums; DIY funerals, living funerals, and obituary one-liners (“Doug died.”) all ask you to rewrite the script. Meanwhile, a culture that avoided talking about death is now bingeing true crime, touring historic cemeteries, and swapping “coffin spinner” facts at dinner. Like Caitlin Doughty’s Smoke Gets in Your Eyes or Mary Roach’s Stiff (contextual companions), Obitchuary argues you’re braver and more practical when you’re informed—and you’re kinder when you can laugh without looking away.

What you’ll learn in this summary

First, you’ll walk through the body’s postmortem timeline—Fresh to Dry—so you understand rigor mortis, livor mortis, the infamous “death chill,” and even death erections (yes, really), then survey your disposition menu: embalming, natural burial, cremation, cryonics, mummification, body farms, tattoo preservation, and “extreme embalming” like Ohio biker Billy Standley buried astride his Harley in a plexiglass casket. Next, you’ll design the “big day”: funeral attire across cultures, celebrity last looks (Aretha’s four outfits and Louboutin heels), and Victorian mourning warehouses that sold crepe veils so toxic they could make you sick.

From there, you’ll pivot to FUNerals: paid wailers (moirologists), dancing pallbearers, socialites seated with Champagne, and the Taiwanese/Chinese controversy over funeral strippers. You’ll unpack wills and obituaries—how they sugarcoat monsters (Michael Haight) or scorch earth (Kathleen Dehmlow)—and meet coffin confessors, sin-eaters, and last-word legends. You’ll explore living funerals in Japan (seizensō) and South Korea’s “Well Dying” coffins that use contemplation, not caskets, to save lives.

Then comes the hard stuff: historical atrocities and taboos (necrophilia cases, grave robbing, and the Lamb/Sconce cremation scandal), medical misadventures (lobotomies from Rosemary Kennedy to a 12-year-old “because he was defiant,” and the nineteenth-century terror of premature burial that spawned waiting mortuaries and bell-rigged safety coffins). You’ll look at love after the last breath—companion plots, heart burials (Henry I and Richard the Lionheart), and broken-heart syndrome stories (Johnny Cash and Debbie Reynolds)—and zoom out to pets and grief: ancient to modern pet cemeteries, animal mourning rituals, and the heroics of cadaver dogs like Pearl, Apollo, and Buster.

The tone: irreverent, humane, and useful

Henry and Reyes mix rigor with riffs. You’ll get precise dates, odd patents (coffin torpedoes!), and global practices alongside recipes (Funeral Potatoes) and gentle, practical advice for supporting grieving friends (bring breakfast, send delivery gift cards). They won’t let you forget that obituaries are for the living—and that a funny one can heal as much as a solemn one. By the end, you’ll be more prepared to plan, more able to comfort, and less likely to be blindsided by the logistics you didn’t know to expect.

Key idea

Laughter doesn’t trivialize death; it punctures fear so you can act. If you can say the unsayable (even just, “Doug died.”), you can also ask the practical, loving questions that make a better goodbye.

If you’ve ever wondered what to wear in a casket, whether caskets can explode (they can), why some Victorians collected tears, or how to ensure your final party isn’t a flop, this summary will give you the stories, the science, and the scripts to face the end with curiosity and care. In short: you’ll be the person everyone’s grateful to have around when things get real.

Spencer Henry and Madison Reyes start with what most people skip: what actually happens to your body after you die. They break it into stages that sound like a grim craft fair—Fresh, Bloat, Active Decay, Advanced Decay, and Dry—but the timeline grounds you when emotions and rumor swirl. You’ll also learn why the smell of death is unforgettable, why hair doesn’t really “keep growing,” and how forensic entomologists clock time of death by maggots. It’s graphic, yes, but it turns superstition into science—so you can make saner choices about what comes next.

Fresh: the ordinary miracles of shutting down

Within minutes, pallor mortis lightens the skin. Algor mortis cools the body roughly 1.5°F per hour. Blood settles with gravity (livor mortis), causing the purple-red “postmortem stain.” Muscles stiffen (rigor mortis) by 12 hours, then relax over about three days. A detail you won’t forget: in hangings or vertical deaths, pooled blood can trigger a “death erection.” Meanwhile, eyelids slacken, jaws drop, and sphincters loosen—details that make the mortician’s art (and the family’s timing) suddenly relevant.

Bloat to Dry: why nature needs you, too

Three to five days in, bacteria party in your gut, gases build, and purge fluids appear at the nose and mouth. By days 8–10, tissues liquefy, skin darkens, and insects feast—maggots become clocks for investigators. Eventually, the body dries and skeletonizes; in temperate climates, this can take weeks to years depending on weather, insects, and whether the body is buried, bagged, or submerged. The smell (odor mortis) is both an attractant (for scavengers) and a warning (for would-be eaters), and some researchers think we may have dedicated neural “death odor” receptors. Either way, you’ll never confuse it with anything else.

Your disposition menu: far more than “burial or cremation”

Once you understand the clock, choices make sense. Embalming slows decay but doesn’t stop it; “extreme embalming” can pose you fishing, golfing, or sipping, as in the viral cases of New Orleans mourners seated at their own parties. Coffins (hexagonal, body-shaped) differ from caskets (rectangular, plush)—and sealed caskets can explode from gas build-up (rare but real). You can be buried vertical, on top of a partner, or, like Ohio biker Billy Standley, astride your Harley in a plexiglass casket his sons engineered to spec. And yes, runaway caskets happen on hills.

Cremation turns you to bone fragments and ash in a few hours (U.S. cremation rose from 40.6% in 2010 to 56% in 2020 and is projected to top 70% by 2030). Natural burial skips chemicals and heavy vaults; mushroom suits and reforestation burials feed ecosystems. Body farms (pioneered by William Bass; see also Mary Roach’s Stiff) place donated bodies in varied conditions—open fields, trailers, plastic wrap—to teach investigators how time, climate, and concealment change the story a corpse can tell. Cryonics freezes you at −196°C after perfusing your tissues with cryoprotectant “antifreeze”; no one can reverse it yet, but some optimists prepay $80,000 (brain only) to $200,000 (whole body) hoping tomorrow’s nanobots will meet them halfway.

From diamonds to dermis: keepsakes and art

Ashes can become lab-grown memorial diamonds (e.g., LifeGem), pigments for tattoos or paintings, fireworks, or coral reefs. Lock of hair instead of ashes? Science still works. Tattoo preservation turns your sleeve into framed art; NAPSA pioneered methods that cost $5,000–$20,000 depending on scale. If that squicks you out, you’re not alone—the authors call it the one option that makes their skin crawl.

Practical takeaway

Decide early and write it down. Tell loved ones if you want natural burial, cremation, diamonds, or a research donation. The fewer mysteries they face about your body, the more energy they can spend on your story.

Once you grasp the science, the rest—what to wear, where to go, how to remember—stops being terrifying and becomes a creative conversation. You don’t conquer death by ignoring it; you rehumanize it by learning how it works.

What should your last outfit say about you? Obitchuary treats funerals like the last party you’ll host—and argues that the clothes, rituals, and even the menu are storytelling tools. You’ll tour cultural dress codes, celebrity finales, and the Victorian mourning-industrial complex, then get real about what actually helps a grieving family (hint: carbs and casseroles). You’ll leave ready to script a service that looks like your life, not a template.

Clothes that fit your life (and your body)

Dressing a body is surprisingly technical—garments are often cut down the back and rolled on—so be realistic about that Hervé Léger fantasy. Let your outfit reflect your identity or service: Buddhists choose casual simplicity; many Muslims shroud in white with women’s hair braided; Jewish chevra kadisha teams perform taharah and dress the deceased in simple shrouds; Catholics often lean formal. Stars go bespoke: Aretha Franklin had four looks (red lace with Louboutins, powder blue, rose-gold suit, then a long gold gown); Elvis pivoted from public white jumpsuit to private white suit; Anna Nicole Smith’s ceremony went all pink, tiara included; GG Allin went out in a jockstrap and leather jacket; Zsa Zsa Gabor’s urn rode in a Louis Vuitton dog carrier. If your style is “socks with stories,” emulate President George H. W. Bush’s plane-patterned pair, nodding to his Naval Aviator past.

Victorian mourning: warehouses, veils, and tear-catchers

Nineteenth-century mourners went all in. London’s Jay’s Mourning Warehouse and Black Peter Robinson’s supplied everything: black crepe veils (sooty, smelly, and sometimes toxic with arsenic, chromium, and copper chloride), gloves, stationery, and even horse-drawn fitting calls for widows. Queen Victoria’s 40-year mourning set the tone: prolonged black, hair jewelry, strict etiquette. Tear vials (“lachrymatories”) held wept tears as tokens; some said they carried messages to the beyond. Families memorialized children with life-size wax effigies (“grave dolls”) dressed in the child’s clothing, displayed at the grave or even in the crib—equal parts tender and chilling to modern eyes.

Food is love (and logistics)

If you want to help a grieving friend, feed them. The authors’ field notes: drop breakfast, send dinner gift cards, keep coffee coming. Rituals feed the dead, too: at Korean funerals, families offer rice and three spoonfuls of yukgaejang to the deceased; Jews bring a Seudat Havra’ah of eggs and lentils (symbolizing the cycle of life), then a week of deli trays during shiva; Día de los Muertos includes sugared pan de muerto and marigolds; Irish wakes may feature currant-laced “wake cake.” In the American South, expect a spread: ham biscuits, fried chicken, mac-and-cheese, collards, and comforting casseroles. Want a crowd-pleaser? Serve “Funeral Potatoes,” the LDS-adjacent hash-brown casserole (sour cream + cream-of-chicken + cheddar + cornflake crust). It’s grief alchemy.

Let your taste lead—not the template

Maybe you’re a traditionalist in black, or maybe your vibe is “pink everything.” Either way, signal to your people what matters to you, and give them permission to honor your quirks. Write it down: colors, music, readings, whether you want a wake or a home viewing, whether your casket should have a sound system, whether you want your portrait flanked by your favorite sneakers. Think about the flow: Who speaks? Is there time for stories? Where will folks gather, and who’s wrangling the food?

Practical takeaway

Rituals work when they match the person. If you’re planning for someone else, ask: What did they wear, eat, and love? Then translate that to attire, decor, and menu. If you’re planning your own, leave a one-page “vibes and wishes” doc with outfits, music, and foods that feel like you.

Grief can be chaotic. A thoughtful wardrobe choice, a non-toxic veil, a favorite casserole—these small decisions work like handrails on a shaky day. They also remind everyone why they’re there: to see you one last time, and to keep telling your story.

Funerals don’t have to be dour to be meaningful. Obitchuary argues for sincerity over solemnity, and shows how people worldwide lace send-offs with showmanship, humor, and community choreography. You’ll meet professional mourners, funeral clowns, dancing pallbearers—and yes, funeral strippers—then ask a serious question beneath the spectacle: what helps the living grieve honestly?

Professional mourners: paid grief, real catharsis

Moirologists—also called wailers—have cried professionally since at least 756 CE in China, and across Egypt and the Middle East. In Victorian England, head counts at funerals even signaled social standing, pushing some families to hire tears. Today, a mourner might cost $35–$500/hour, with extra for dramatic graveside theatrics (rending clothes, threatening to jump). It sounds absurd, but the authors frame it as ritual outsourcing: when a family needs volume, someone provides it. (Compare to modern death doulas—different job, same aim: structured space for emotions.)

From DJs to dancers to…strippers

Some families hire DJs, magicians, even clowns to break tension. Viral “dancing pallbearers” in Ghana choreograph joy and resolve into the hard work of carrying the dead. In Taiwan and parts of China, funeral strippers rose in the 1980s (amid mortuary-industry corruption) as a way to draw crowds and “bring luck,” especially in rural communities; crackdowns in 2018 even offered rewards for reporting performances. If that makes you cringe, that’s the point: grief cultures evolve, and every era finds a way to look the loss in the eye without blinking.

Pose me like I lived

“Extreme embalming” swaps the casket-view for a scene from the person’s life. New Orleans socialite Mickey Easterling presided over her own event, seated with a Champagne flute and cigarette. Miriam Burbank was posed at a table with beer, whiskey, and smokes; Judy Sunday’s casket became…a bowling ball hurled down the lane. The question isn’t “Is this weird?” but “Does this fit the person?” If so, it can powerfully locate grief in the deceased’s natural habitat.

Who shows up—and why that matters

The authors surface a quiet terror of the bereaved: “What if nobody comes?” Spectacle can be a strategy to ensure attendance (hence mourners for hire or, in extremes, exotic performers). But quantity isn’t quality. What helps most is honest ritual and specific memory—things that invite people to participate, not just watch. That might mean an open mic for stories, a table to write letters to the deceased, or a playlist for a communal ugly-cry.

Design cue

If your loved one loved a crowd, go big. If they treasured intimacy, shrink the room. There’s no wrong way to mourn—only mismatched production values.

In short, FUNerals aren’t about disrespect. They’re about alignment. When the shape of the send-off matches the shape of a life, people don’t just attend—they recognize their person and feel brave enough to say goodbye.

Death rearranges the living, but documents and stories shape how. Obitchuary shows how wills direct property (and posthumous pranks), how obituaries tell the tale (sweet, salty, or savage), and how last words and confessions complicate what we think we know. Your takeaway: the “last word” is a genre—use it wisely, because it becomes your public face.

Wills as theater (and cautionary tales)

Harry Houdini required his wife Bess to hold annual séances; he even gave her a secret word list to verify a true connection. Lawyer Charles Vance Millar’s “Great Stork Derby” set off a baby race in 1920s Toronto by promising his estate to the woman with the most children in a set period. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham ordered his body preserved as an “auto-icon”—now seated at University College London with a wax head after the real one looked like a football. Hotel magnate Leona Helmsley left $12 million to her Maltese, Trouble, outstripping her grandkids; she also endowed annual steam-cleaning of the family mausoleum. Wills can love, punish, or troll. Choose your legacy.

Obituaries: hagiography, haiku, or heat-seeking missile

The modern obit evolved from bare-bones “death notices” into mini-biographies. But the best ones deliver voice. Douglas Legler’s entire obit—“Doug died.”—honored his standing wish and nailed the point. Renay Corren’s son wrote an affectionate roast—“A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck”—that spun vices into virtues. Others torch reputations: Kathleen Dehmlow’s kids wrote that the world was “a better place without her” after she abandoned them; Leslie Charping’s obit called him a “horse’s ass” whose ashes would be stored “until the donkey’s wood shavings run out.” Flip side: a Utah paper briefly ran a glowing obit for familicide-killer Michael Haight, proving obits can whitewash monsters if editors aren’t vigilant.

Coffin confessions, sin-eaters, and the art of the reveal

Want to drop a bomb at your own funeral? Hire a coffin confessor to interrupt the eulogy and read your secret. Before that, British/Welsh “sin-eaters” were paid a pittance to eat bread over a corpse and symbolically absorb sins—outcasts performing spiritual waste management. And sometimes the dead write their own tea: Val Patterson’s self-penned obit confessed to stealing a motel safe, faking his PhD by accident (clerical error he didn’t correct), and being banned from Disneyland and SeaWorld—all while thanking his wife with fierce tenderness.

Last words and living funerals

The book collects last lines (Frank Sinatra: “I’m losing.”; Winston Churchill: “I’m bored with it all.”; Steve Irwin: “I’m dying.”). But don’t wait for your deathbed to speak. Living funerals let you hear the eulogies while you’re here. In Japan (seizensō), older adults preplan, pay, and preside. In South Korea, “Well Dying” programs put participants in shrouds and coffins for silent reflection—25,000+ at one Seoul funeral home—meant to pivot the suicidal toward life. Felix “Bush” Breazeale’s 1938 Tennessee living funeral drew 8,000 onlookers; Zeng Jia, a 22-year-old Chinese mortuary student, staged her own to hear what people would actually say. Eighteenth-century oddball Timothy Dexter faked his death, scolded his wife for not crying hard enough, then really died later—because of course he did.

Practical takeaway

Obituaries are for the living but they become your artifact. Draft your own notes—three beats from your life, one sentence that sounds like you, and a quote you love. Leave your executor guidance on tone: classic, comic, or chaotic.

The last word isn’t about control; it’s about clarity. Say what you mean now, and your people won’t have to guess between “angel” and “asshole” later.

The dead body isn’t just sacred; historically, it’s also been currency, contraband, and compulsion. Obitchuary stares down the darkest edges—necrophilia, grave robbing, and industrial abuse—so you can see how laws, ethics, and forensic science evolved in response. Triggering? Yes. Important? Also yes, because sunlight is disinfectant.

Necrophilia: diagnosis of a crime

The Oxford definition is clinical; the reality is nauseating. Motives vary (rejection avoidance, control), but consent is impossible—so it’s abuse, full stop. Case studies shock you into vigilance: in 1840s Paris, Sergeant François Bertrand, the “Vampire of Montparnasse,” mutilated exhumed women; in 1930s Key West, technician Carl Tanzler stole the body of Maria Elena Hoyos, wired her skeleton, stuffed body cavities with rags, used wax and silk for skin, and lived with her for years; in 1979, Sacramentan apprentice embalmer Karen Greenlee kidnapped a corpse for a multi-day “romance,” later confessing to dozens of acts during a time when necrophilia wasn’t yet illegal in California. The lesson is not titillation but policy: we criminalize taboos to protect the most powerless—the dead.

Body snatching: when science outpaced supply

In the 18th–19th centuries, medical schools needed cadavers, but legal supply was slim, so “resurrectionists” raided fresh graves. They dug at the head, cracked the lid, hooked a neck or armpit, and packed corpses in whiskey barrels as “stiff drinks.” Communities fought back with iron/stone “mort safes,” grave cages, and booby-traps. Best name: the “coffin torpedo,” a spring-triggered lead-ball blast to mince robbers. Famous thefts remind us the dead remain targets—Elvis’s near-robbery spurred reburial at Graceland; Charlie Chaplin was held for ransom (recovered); director F. W. Murnau’s skull was stolen in 2015; Groucho Marx’s ashes were taken and found later.

Industrial crime: the Lamb/Sconce scandal

The 1980s Southern California case reads like Scorsese. David Sconce, scion of a respected Pasadena mortuary family, launched a cut-rate cremation business, then met demand by cremating in bulk—five to eighteen bodies per furnace—and bagging mixed remains by gendered weight. When one site burned (after employees tried to load nineteen bodies in each of two furnaces), he opened a clandestine “ceramics” crematory with diesel kilns in Hesperia. A 1986 raid found floors slick with human fluids and a flaming foot falling from a kiln door. Add-ons: ripping gold teeth for $6,000/month, selling organs (136 brains), and sending football-buddy goons to beat competitors; one rival died amid suspicion of poisoning. Multiple convictions followed; class actions paid out; the dynasty cratered. It’s the nightmare scenario that makes today’s licensing, tracking, and chain-of-custody rules feel like mercy.

Ethical anchor

Dignity doesn’t end at death. Transparency (paper trails, witnessed ID, secure facilities) protects grieving families. If a provider won’t answer your chain-of-custody questions, walk.

Facing the ugliness helps you choose wisely. Reputable funeral homes will welcome questions. So ask them—on behalf of the person you love and the person you’ll one day be.

Two historic fears haunt modern grief: medicine harming rather than healing, and being buried alive. Obitchuary tackles both—charting the rise and collapse of the lobotomy craze and the 19th-century scramble to prove death—so you can understand how we got safer, saner practices today.

Lobotomies: scrambling minds to “cure” minds

Marketed mid-20th century as relief for schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety, lobotomies severed connections in the prefrontal cortex using drills, leucotomes, or—infamously—an “ice pick” through the eye socket (Dr. Walter Freeman’s transorbital technique). The human cost is devastating in the book’s portraits. Rosemary Kennedy, delayed from birth injury, was lobotomized at 23 to curb normal young-adult behavior—afterward, she lost speech and much mobility, functionally a toddler; the family hid her for decades. Playwright Tennessee Williams’s sister Rose, labeled schizophrenic, was blunted into a shell. Twelve-year-old Howard Dully, “defiant sometimes,” received Freeman’s pick one week before Christmas; he later spiraled, then rebuilt a life and told the truth. Even “successes” (Sallie Ionesco) came with memory loss. Helen Mortensen’s third lobotomy in 1967 severed a vessel; she died, Freeman’s surgical career ended. The episode is a moral lode star: be wary of silver bullets for complex brains (cf. Oliver Sacks’s cautionary neurology essays).

Buried alive: tests, tech, and terror

Before stethoscopes and EEGs matured, “proving” death got creative—and grisly. Doctors tried galvanism (electric current applied to cadavers); finger-in-ear pulse checks; nipple pinchers (Jules Antoine Josat’s device); burning noses and toes; even heart-flag needles. Séverin Icard’s parlor-trick test slid “I am really dead” (in acetate of lead) into the nostril to react with putrefaction gases; false positives abounded. The public, terrified of premature burial, responded with “safety coffins”: bell cords to the surface, viewing windows, air tubes, even heated, lit, phone-equipped patents. Waiting mortuaries held bodies on zinc tables until decay proved the point. Angelo Hays survived burial after a motorcycle crash and was exhumed alive by an insurer; he later invented a survival coffin with radio, fridge, oven, and toilet. Today’s certification and modern embalming make live burial exceptionally rare, but the lore reminds us how hard-won “certainty” was.

Modern comfort

Current pronouncement standards (multiple vital checks, medical records, and in-hospital monitoring) make the Victorian nightmare vanishingly unlikely. If your family has specific concerns, you can request a short hold before burial or cremation.

The takeaway isn’t paranoia—it’s perspective. Medicine improves, but skepticism is healthy. Ask questions, read consents, and remember: every policy we have was paid for by someone’s pain.

Death parts bodies, but love keeps reaching. Obitchuary collects stories of couples and kin joined in burial, hearts traveling without bodies, and people who die within days—or minutes—of one another. Beyond romance, these vignettes help you translate devotion into practical plans.

Companion plots and entwined skeletons

Cemeteries sell duo-friendly real estate—side-by-side or “double depth” (one atop the other). Whether you can share one casket depends on local law, casket size, and family consent. Archeology proves the impulse is ancient. The Lovers of Modena (4th–5th c. CE) are two young men buried hand-in-hand—perhaps lovers, brothers, or comrades. The Valdaro Lovers (6,000 years old) face each other, limbs entwined, with flint tools buried beside them; they were likely gently posed in death. Greece’s Alepotrypa “spooning” pair (c. 5,800 years) seem to have died in embrace. Iran’s Hasanlu Lovers (c. 800 BCE) appear to kiss as one cushions the other’s face. We may never know their exact bonds, but we know what the living chose to say: together.

Double caskets and synchronized goodbyes

Some love stories end almost simultaneously—and families answer in kind. In 1937 Arkansas, Aunt Easter died after illness; Uncle Sog prayed to follow and died hours later. A local maker built a double coffin; photos show them laid together. In 2017 Missouri, Raymond and Velva Breuer, married 77 years, died 30 hours apart; their kids asked the funeral home to place them in one coffin. The point isn’t spectacle—it’s symmetry.

Hearts as pilgrims

Medieval heart burials solved logistics and symbolism. King Henry I’s heart and intestines stayed in Rouen while his salt-rubbed, oxhide-wrapped body sailed to Reading Abbey (the surgeon removing his brain died from the stench). Richard the Lionheart split, too: heart at Rouen, entrails where he fell, body at Fontevraud Abbey by his father. Poet Thomas Hardy’s compromise buried his heart with his first wife in Dorset and his ashes in Westminster’s Poets’ Corner. Percy Shelley’s heart calcified (likely from TB) and wouldn’t burn; Mary Shelley kept it wrapped in silk in her desk—a macabre love letter across time.

When hearts break, bodies follow

Broken-heart syndrome (takotsubo cardiomyopathy) mimics heart attack after acute stress. It’s not always fatal, but sometimes grief truly shortens life. Johnny Cash died four months after June Carter Cash; his declining health and grief were entwined. Debbie Reynolds died one day after daughter Carrie Fisher; her stroke likely braided with sorrow. Former NFL QB Doug Flutie’s parents died within an hour—first his father of a heart attack, then his grieving mother. In Scotland, John Lamb died 11 weeks after his son Thomas was murdered, having learned of the attack too late to help. These aren’t myths; they’re maps of attachment’s cost.

Planning prompt

If “together” matters to you, document it: companion plots, joint markers, even instructions for heart or ash placement. Tell your people what “together” means—distance makes its own decisions if you don’t.

Love writes itself into stone and ritual. Your job is to give it coordinates.

If you’ve ever loved an animal, you know: their deaths open the same ache. Obitchuary traces pet burials from antiquity to modern memorial parks, shows that many animals visibly mourn, and spotlights the astonishing noses of cadaver dogs who help families find answers.

Pet cemeteries: old as love

In Israel’s Ashkelon, archaeologists found 1,300 individually buried dogs (5th–3rd c. BCE), many likely dying naturally—perhaps honored for healing-associated saliva. Illinois’s Koster Site holds domesticated dogs buried 8,000 years ago among humans. In Siberia’s Lake Baikal, a dog was laid to rest with an antler spoon and red-deer-teeth necklace—family status in grave goods (as anthropologist Robert Losey notes: “It had a soul.”). Modern parks continue the care: London’s Hyde Park holds 300+ pets (the first, “Cherry,” in 1881); Paris’s Cimetière des Chiens (1899) is a leafy monument with Rin Tin Tin’s grave; New York’s Hartsdale, founded by a veterinarian tied to early ASPCA work, anchors American pet remembrance. There’s even a National War Dog Cemetery in Guam for WWII canines, a mascot cemetery at Texas A&M, and a whimsical Haunted Mansion pet cemetery at Disneyland.

Animals grieve, too

Science once scoffed; observation won. Jane Goodall watched chimp Flint wither after companion Flo’s death—lethargy, refusal to eat, hollow-eyed despair. Captive chimps tidied straw from Pansy’s fur, then avoided the spot she died. In 2018, orca J35 carried her dead calf for over two weeks in a “tour of grief” that moved the world. Elephants hold vigils over stillborns, then gather at old bones, stroking them; their temporal-gland streaming looks like tears during peak emotion. Geese slump; magpies “funeral” their dead with twig-and-grass burials; crows mob and keen. The pattern is clear: social animals sense loss and ritualize it (Marc Bekoff’s cross-species grief work adds context here).

Cadaver dogs: noses that give answers

Human-remains-detection dogs have roughly 300 million olfactory receptors (we have about 6 million) and can smell decomposition through soil and water, often 15 feet down. Trainer Jason Purgason looks for hunt drive and environmental confidence; dogs train on real human hair, bone, blood, and tissue (or chemical proxies) to recognize the bouquet of decay across stages. Field dogs grid forests and homes; disaster dogs pivot from live search to recovery (think 9/11); water dogs “read” surfacing gases to pinpoint drownings.

Heroes abound. Pearl, a yellow Lab, became the first formal HRD dog for New York State Police in 1974, locating a student buried four feet deep. Apollo, a German shepherd, searched Ground Zero within 15 minutes of the second tower’s fall and earned the Dickin Medal. Two guide dogs, Roselle and Salty, led their blind handlers—and many others—out of the World Trade Center. In the Laci Peterson case, Twist repeatedly indicated in Scott Peterson’s warehouse bathroom; Trimble pointed to a pier where remains later surfaced. Buster, working with retired detective Paul Dostie, scented old blood around suspect locations in the Black Dahlia cold case and found unmarked graves worldwide.

One perfect pet obit

Gidget—the Taco Bell Chihuahua who declared “Yo Quiero Taco Bell”—was a she who played a he. Her trainer remembered a “big-dog attitude” who always found her light. If you ever doubt whether a pet deserves an obit, read hers and say their name out loud.

If an animal has been your person, give them the dignity of a plan. And if a person is missing, blessing on the dogs who help us bring them home.

Before cloud albums and Instagram memorials, families used cameras, tricks, and even electricity to keep company with the dead. Obitchuary tours postmortem photography, Victorian spirit portraits, galvanic “reanimations,” and the quirky keepsakes people pack for the trip—plus one chilling mix-up you’ll want to prevent in your own plans.

Postmortem portraits: the only photo they had

In the 19th century—when child mortality was high and living portraits were pricey—families often hired photographers after death. Long exposures made the still body look crisp while moving mourners blurred like ghosts. Makeup added flush; artists painted open eyes on lids. Contrary to internet lore, true standing poses were rare (rigor mortis and gravity make it nearly impossible). Seen with modern eyes, the images can feel eerie. Seen with theirs, they were acts of love.

Spirit photography: comfort, commerce, and con

During spiritualism’s boom, photographers “captured spirits” with double exposures and superimposed negatives. William H. Mumler, who claimed his first spirit was a deceased cousin accidentally caught in a self-portrait (1861), sold sittings in a studio he shared with medium Hannah; he was tried (and acquitted) for fraud in 1869. William Hope founded England’s Crewe Circle, winning Arthur Conan Doyle’s faith, but was later exposed—once by a father who sent a photo of his very-alive “dead son,” and definitively by ghost hunter Harry Price, who secretly marked Hope’s plates before a swap. (Note: Like stage magic, debunked “spirit” tricks can still leave real grief comforted—which is part of why they flourished.)

Galvanism: twitching frogs to Frankenstein myths

Luigi Galvani made frog legs kick with electricity, coining “animal electricity.” Nephew Giovanni Aldini applied currents to larger animals, then to human cadavers from the gallows. In London, 1803, he electrified executed murderer George Foster’s corpse; a jaw quivered, an eye opened. Public demos inspired Mary Shelley’s fictional Dr. Frankenstein. Later, Dr. Duchenne mapped facial expression by stimulating cadaver muscles and photographing the results—macabre, yes, but foundational to neurology and emotional science.

What people take with them

Keepsakes show who we were. Doritos creator Arch West was buried sprinkled with his chips; mourners tossed bags into the grave. Humphrey Bogart lies with a gold whistle engraved, “If you need anything, just whistle”—a line Lauren Bacall made famous. Bela Lugosi was buried as Dracula, cape and all. Roald Dahl took pencils, wine, chocolate, a pool cue, and a power saw—equal parts child and craftsman. Practical note: confirm cremation or burial preferences in writing; Bogart had once wanted ashes scattered at sea, uncommon at the time.

When it goes wrong

At Buckmiller Brothers Funeral Home, 95-year-old Aurelie Tuccillo’s family realized at the wake that the body in the casket wasn’t hers. The home had cremated Aurelie by mistake and placed another person (scheduled for cremation) in her casket. The son’s gut check was right; the damage was irreversible. Elsewhere, a well-meaning friend once Sharpied the deceased’s name on driveway rocks and placed them at a memorial as “favors,” leaving the family amused-horrified. Moral: vet vendors, label remains meticulously, and put someone you trust in charge of taste.

Action items

• Leave a written cremation/burial directive and designate an agent.
• Create a small “obit kit”: a recent photo you like, a bio paragraph, and a quote.
• Appoint a tasteful friend as memorial editor to approve favors, photos, and slideshows.

We keep finding ways to stay in touch. Some are tender, some are tricks, some are tech. The point isn’t to resurrect the dead; it’s to help the living remember well.