My dad is 98 years old.  He lives in an assisted living facility.  His room is number eight.

He has never owed anyone.  He never borrowed money.  He has been remarkably self-sufficient in living his near one hundred years.

Not wanting to burden anyone with his obituary or seeing to his affairs after death, he has taken all the steps he can short of putting the date on the headstone that is already carved and waiting.

What he wanted most in life and failed to get was an education.  He was forced to go to work after eight years in a one-room schoolhouse.  One of his children got the education he longed for.

Trying to tidy up the last few bits of what remains of his life, he wrote and sent me his obituary so I wouldn’t have to do it.  He just wanted his remaining, highly educated son to formalize it.  It is below in original form and I don’t think my dressed up version is half as good.

 

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About the Author

Gerald Cannon

I growed up po and ignant in Alabama. Then I went off to college and became a socialistic atheistic business school grad with an MBA. Not wanting to add evil capitalistic bastard to my resume, I obtained an antidote degree -the MFA. What a difference a letter makes. Now I teach college and make art. That's more fun and I'm less prone to drift toward the dark side. So, at the advanced age of sixty.... I have chosen mind over matter, joined the League of Defensive Pessimists and have no better answers, only fewer questions.

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