((new)): Declue Funeral Home Obits

Here’s a short story inspired by the phrase "Declue Funeral Home Obits."

Margaret Declue had written over two thousand obituaries. For thirty years, she’d sat at the same oak desk in the back of Declue Funeral Home, translating grief into graceful prose. She knew the rhythms: Beloved husband of… passed peacefully… surrounded by family… declue funeral home obits

By morning, people had added their own postscripts in pen. He taught me to tie a fly. He buried my stillborn son and cried with me. He gave me a job when no one else would. Here’s a short story inspired by the phrase

Margaret adjusted her glasses. “Who else knows him?” He taught me to tie a fly

Margaret kept going, not as an obituary, but as a letter. She wrote about the time Henry refinanced the funeral home’s mortgage to buy a stray dog a $4,000 surgery. About how he sang off-key to every body he prepared, saying, “Can’t send ‘em off in silence.” About the way he held her hand at the movies even when his arthritis screamed.

Margaret stood on the porch, reading the crowd’s tribute. A young man she didn’t recognize handed her a coffee—black, two sugars. “Henry said you forget to eat.”

She added: He died at home, drinking bad coffee and telling a joke about a priest and a duck.