From the desk of James Reel on Friday, December 22nd 2006 at 8:26
HOW TO WRITE AN OBIT
A bear at Reid Park Zoo has succumbed to liver cancer, and the Arizona Daily Star's Tom Beal has written a charming obituary that follows all the rules while also revealing far more about the bear's personality than do the usual sugar-coated farewells to human beings. Read the obit Tom wrote, and then for samples of typical warts-and-all English obituary, go here and here, and read this overview published a few years ago in Slate.
