Molly Bish: "The Ripples of Loss"

Her name was Molly Bish. A 16-year old lifeguard who, after being dropped off for her shift at Comins Pond in rural western Massachusetts, disappeared.

"In June 2003, following a month-long search of woods in which a hunter found scraps of a bathing suit similar to Molly’s, 26 of her bones were discovered. That remote mountainside was in my town, and five miles from her front door. Molly’s funeral was held Aug. 2, which would have been her 20th birthday.

… Her murder remains unsolved. The majority of any good news the community has been able to cheer lies in the family’s work. The Molly Bish Foundation established a decade ago at the Bish kitchen table has visited 1,500 events and handed out 165,000 child identification kits." — Obit-Mag.com The Ripples of Loss

Suzanne Strempek Shea wrote a moving piece about how Molly's kidnapping, death rocked her community. How the unthinkable occurred and how an amazing family is working to make a difference as a result of unfathomable loss. You can find out more about how to help at the Molly Bish Center for the Protection of Children and the Elderly.

I Like to Think I'll Exit Well

Firstly, thanks Deirdre and Beanie for your comments on yesterday's post. Know that I believe exactly what you said, but sometimes wonder whether or not I would hold on to my beliefs in the event of receiving the news that my time here on Earth was much more, let's say, "limited."

Not in a philosophical way, but in the "Mr. Miller, we have found [insert fatal malady here] and you have approximately [insert seriously truncated period of time here] to live…" Would I be able to say, "Hmmmm, so that's how it's gonna be? Well then, let's have some fun!"?

I like to think so. Having never thought about any kind of bucket list, I'd have to get busy and figure out what I would do with the time that I have left.

I'm not certain that I would be entirely altruistic and philanthropic about the whole thing. If I decided to tap the [burgeoning, huge really] mischievous side of my personality, the ideas in Death and Dying — The Good News might be a good place to start. Judy Bachrach is one of my heroes. She gives advice on a great blog called The Checkout Line. The brilliant girls at Jezebel.com LOVE her and parody her column at Obit-Mag [Ask Judy] every once in a while…

Final thought for today: "You can't cling to a flincher."

The Faces of Grief

Obit-Mag.com has a daily column named, Mourning Roundup in which our Managing Editor, Krishna Andavolu, posts 'deathy' links from the web. Today's features an excellent article from the New Yorker about photographer Phillip Toledano's amazing pictures of his father during the final days of his terminal illness.

It made me remember another photo that I had in a drawer in my kitchen.

This photograph is a polaroid from a series that I shot of my mother's urn the night before we interred her ashes in a beautiful cemetery in Southeastern Connecticut. The rose is from an arrangement that someone sent to her memorial service.

I don't know why I took these photographs. Maybe it was because my very good friend Natalie turned the urn from a piece of cherry wood with her own two hands. Maybe I thought it was important for my brother and sisters to remember what the urn looked like. I always thought that I would do something with them. I did not.

My mother actually held this urn in her hands during her final days. She wanted to see it. The gravity of the situation seemed to hit her when we carefully handed it to her and helped her hold it. It was heavy. She was weak.

My brother and I placed the urn in a [very] deep hole that the cemetery had prepared for us. It was so deep that we had to practically lay on the ground, side by side, with one of each of our hands cradling it.

Maybe that's why I took the photos. So I could remember everything. All of it

Michael Schaffer is The Grim Reader

Every Friday, we feature Michael Schaffer's Grim Reader at Obit-Mag.com. It's an exploration of the "obitosphere" — Michael coined this term to describe the environment created by journalists when famous people die. I think it's brilliant. I also think he is brilliant. My favorite part of the column, week after week, is his closing paragraph. It's either funny or touching or pointed, but always intriguing… Here's this week's:

"From the department of count your blessings: The Independent runs a nice obituary for Col. Bud Mahurin, a U.S. Air Force flyer who was shot down in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of World War II — and then once again during the Korean War. It wasn’t all bad news for Mahurin: The obit also credits him with being the only American to shoot down enemy planes over both oceans during WWII. Still, it’s the tales of his airborne misfortunes that dominate. Mahurin had accumulated 10 kills when he ejected from a damaged plane over France. A farmer took him to the Resistance, which helped him back to England. Superiors there, though, decided that Mahurin’s awareness of the underground movement would mean trouble if ever he wound up in German hands. So they sent him off to the Pacific, where he scored a hit on a Japanese fighter before being shot down again. He made it to safety on a life raft. By Korea, he was flying jets, and notched three kills. But this time, his encounter with ground fire ended in a much grimmer scenario. He was a North Korean POW for 16 months."

Thank's Michael. Oh, by the way, Michael also wrote a book about pets. It's called One Nation Under Dog. If you are an animal lover, or know one who's hard to shop for, buy this book.

What is So Enticing About Edie Sedgwick?

This story, She Was To Hip for the Room by Paul Wilner, was published at Obit-Mag.com 2 years ago. It has received thousands and thousands [and thousands] of visits since it was posted and continues to rank in the top ten of Obit's most popular stories. Is it her image? The way she lived? The way she died? Andy Warhol? I've always been intrigued by her transformation from hippie-nymphette to shorn-platinum-haired underground movie star. What's interesting is that most visitors come to the story via a Google image search… Maybe that's it.

So, who owns your Web Identity when you die?

Just listened to Robert Roper on NPR's Talk of the Nation. He attended Digital Death Day on Thursday May 20th, 2010 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA and wrote a very interesting article, Life After Death, in Digital Form It really made me think about all of the different accounts and passwords that I use every day and the fact that no one is privy to them…until now

Welcome to Obit Greg's Daily Discourse

Just got back from a trip to Princeton. Lot's of talk about the new project that we are working on for Obit-Mag.com. It's gonna be terrific! When I woke up this morning, I put together the graphic for a story on the closing of Restaurant Gino in New York City. If you dig 50s wall paper, then check out the picture of the zebras that Gino had on his walls…tres Mad Men. Check out The Memories are Delicious by Matt Flegenheimer.