| Nik Sharp grew up in Palm Harbor and lived in Nashville. [Courtesy of Stephanie Arias] |
| Talking about my generation |
| A question I hear now and then about obituary writing is, “How do you do that every week? Isn’t it sad?” My answer is always, yes, it’s sad, but also life-affirming. Last week and this week, I wrote two stories where that wasn’t quite as true. Why? They were stories about people my own age. Nik Sharp was 42. Owen Meats was 41. I’m 43, and while I’m not a musician like these two, they made me think of a lot of old friends. In fact, talking with their friends felt like talking with my friends. Since most of the obits I write are about people in their 60s, 70s and beyond, I’m often thinking about my mom’s generation when trying to understand the time my subjects lived through. But I share a generation with Nik and Owen, that Gen X/millennial cusp. I could find their videos on YouTube and see what they shared from their lives on Instagram. I understood a lot about the world they both lived in, because it's the one I share. I don’t usually get to write obituaries about younger people because often, their families don’t respond to my calls or emails. I understand. Losing anyone is hard, but there’s a different kind of anguish that comes with losing someone when they’re young. I try not to push too hard. But writing about Nik and Owen reminded me why it’s important to tell these stories, too. They both died young, but they still lived every second of the lives they had. They created music, nurtured friendships and made their communities better. That’s a lot to do in four decades.
You can read more about Nik and Owen and how they lived.
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| Owen Meats grew up in Florida and Kansas. [Photo by Lindy Melendez] |
| Another good self-written obit |
| You know I love when you send me the obits you’re seeing! This one comes from David Weber, who spotted it in The Observer News. |
| [Courtesy of David Weber] |
| Here are some obituaries from the past week that I found in the obits section of the Tampa Bay Times, in the news and from local funeral homes. If you see any with great details, please share them. • Beatrice Rodriguez, 87, of Tampa “began the very active life of raising three children while also supporting her husband’s work as an attorney, a leader in Tampa’s Civil Rights movement and a minister in the A.M.E church.” • Rickey Ricardo Escalante, 65, of Tampa “had such a distinctive flair for fashion.”
• Bill Crown, 80, of Clearwater “led a decadelong push to fund and build the Florida Aquarium in Tampa.”
• Giovanna Campisi, 88, of Tampa “went from teaching to working with the migrant program which she later became the director. Giovanna loved thrift store shopping, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, cooking, and art.”
• Michael Honeycutt, 68, of Tampa “was a Democrat, a motorcycle-riding environmentalist who picked up trash in his spare time, supported WMNF at every turn, and had a daily beer and a shot at The Hub.”
• My Poynter colleague, Ren LaForme, shared an obit about the “Bubble Man” from his hometown paper. • And I love this obit comic, sent courtesy of How They Lived subscriber and friend Bill Folsom. • Finally, here’s something that is just delightful from the Times’ Paul Guzzo: A drunk pigeon and other animals of organized crime in the 1950s.
Thanks for reading, hug your people,
Kristen |
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