Gone to Glory

Dropping like flies, Nana announced as she read through the obituaries in the morning paper and sighed. Didn't even know he'd been sick.

My grandmother always read the obits first, saying it made her feel better not to be in them. They were called "death notices" then, plain language being preferred and they were simple and straightforward, sometimes including a grainy old photo, sometimes not. Now and again the notice would include a little decorative phrasing - gone to glory was most popular. Everyone knew that a long illness almost always meant cancer while untimely passing generally meant an accidental death. Nana read them all whether she knew them or not, often with a critical eye toward grammar, punctuation, and proper format. She disliked the ones that rambled on or listed several paragraphs of relatives and she detested the use of pre-deceased in any form, judging it to be an awkward and clumsy word. She had even been known to call the night desk at The Boston Globe and share her criticisms, an act unfailingly reported to my daddy the following morning by a besieged and harried editor.

She also liked to write letters to the paper when a story amused her or more frequently made her angry. Very few were ever printed but when they were, she celebrated quietly. Freedom of the press, she would tell my mother with a contented smile, was a fine idea. No one would have dared to mention that she expressed this sentiment only when her position and the paper's happened to coincide - there were an equal number of mornings when she would discard the entire newspaper as barely fit to wrap fish in and fiercely threaten to cancel her subscription.

Each month, the paper boy left a small envelope with her bill inside. She would evaluate her calendar where she made notes on a daily basis and add up the number of mornings the paper had made the doorstep against the number of mornings she had had to descend the front steps and collect it. She tracked which rainy mornings the paper had been plastic wrapped and which mornings it had not and she noted late deliveries in detail. The sum of all her numbers decided whether the paper boy got a tip or a Try harder note - she never held him responsible for content, only efficiency of delivery.

I can't help but wonder what Nana would make of newspapers today and the gradual transition from ink, paper and press to headlines and stories on line. I suspect she would say they have gone to glory.