Inspiration in Print

During one of my first journalism classes in college, I read a story about a new reporter who was working with obituaries. The story went that the reporter found a small detail in one of the obituaries that was about to go to print, and followed up with the family, ending up with a hugely influential piece.

This far removed from reading that (my adventures in journalism were a long time ago, and my college career even longer), I don’t recall the small detail that the reporter found. I remember the point of the story: that the smallest detail could uncover important news.

The town in which Karen and I live has a weekly paper. It’s tax-funded….delivered to every resident each Thursday. In the years since my byline appeared on a few front pages, I’ve honestly largely assumed the extinction of the newspaper, but have found since we’ve moved back to New England that I enjoy making the time to read this small paper each week. It’s a distinct point in the week. It marks time. I know what’s happening in the town. I feel more connected in a way that local broadcast news can’t provide, being mostly good only for weather and traffic. There’s some substance to print journalism, here complete even with local op-ed writers. It’s….refreshing.

This last week, I found myself wandering into the obituary section. I read the story of a local artist who had worked for Disney, then lived nearby and who had recently passed. This man’s life made for a compelling story to me. There’s an art to telling someone’s story, and I felt as though I knew this man after reading his obituary. I wasn’t struck so much by any specific aspect of the story, as I was by the totality of the story.

This will sound morbid, which isn’t my intention, so as earnestly as I can write this: I wonder how my obituary will read? As old as I sometimes feel (having a two-year old ages one prematurely, I’m convinced), I still have a lot of life left in front of me. I have no way of knowing what that will entail, and I’ve read enough dystopian science fiction to know that I don’t want to know. I hope, though, that an otherwise unremarkable life lived might inspire someone at an earlier point in their own life when it is read. I hope that I will leave a legacy of a good life lived to my children.

In short, there’s much that I gained from reading this stranger’s story, much that I will carry forward.

I miss newspapers.

 

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