The Obituary

As promised, I’ve been working out this obituary. And I got a new idea while writing it. I’m developing a collection of poems on Jonestown and I’m thinking I’ve found a format: a series of obituaries of the people in the pictures. Well as I imagine them since many aren’t identified. Just a thought.

But the obituary you shall read today is actually my own. As written by me. Morbidity aside, the exercise was fairly useful in reminding me why I feel like an alien beamed here for the sport of the gods.

And it jumpstarted that Jonestown thing that’s been in the starting blocks since August. Whew, good save. The world really does not need any more of my bad oil paintings and y’all know how I get to gluing and painting when I get stuck in my writing.

Okay so before the obituary, a disclaimer of sorts: Deification is generally requisite for a really good obituary. Mine is just kinda good. That should tell you something.
Here goes:

darlene anita scott, 122, has made her transition and though we mourn her physical absence we are glad to have enjoyed it for the time we did.

darlene was a native of Delaware and lived most recently in Some City Other Than Here where she was an educator, artist, and not-so-secret community activist on behalf of under-served children whom she fed in her kitchen and provided scholarships to get out of the tough neighborhoods of Some City Other Than Here.

darlene liked to be behind the scenes. Generally not a vocal person, darlene poured many of her thoughts into literature and was perhaps best known for her 2010 poetry collection, Weekday 4 a.m., which won both a Pulitzer Prize and a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in literature and her multimedia autobiography: Angry With Abstinence and Other Reasons to Riot (Third World Press, 2020).

darlene’s friends and family will remember her as an avid traveler who found her fountain of youth in trying new things. Tragically it was during her latest adventure, base jumping, that she crossed to the other side. (No pun intended).

darlene was preceded in death by her parents and four sisters. She leaves to cherish her memory her live-in lover of 98 years, Boy 6, their twin sons, Rufus and Doofus and their wives, 15.5 grandchildren, 4.3 great grandchildren, a host of nieces, nephews, and cousins, and her best friend: her pet gold fish SuperFish.

The family will hold a riverside memorial on Belle Isle at 1 p.m. on Saturday. Please feel free to bring a favorite poem and a dessert with a lot of sugar in it to share. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to the Sarah Turner/Doreen Scott-Baker Scholarship Fund for Cool Kids c/o Dion Avery Baker, Esq.