Avoiding the Shitty Obituary

I have a friend named Richard who passed away recently. Years ago, we both were math tutors at Oakland Community College. I helped get him in there when I was so impressed with his math ability.

Some years went by, and we had occasion to have quite a few discussions. I would tell him of my board games and such. We even played them sometimes. He always put up a good fight. He had an account on chess.com as did I, and we played on there sometimes, too (chess only on that site). I got my math book done at some point in our relationship, and he wanted to write the solutions manual. My math book is here: Click this link.

Richard had some personal problems. He was homeless, for one. He did have a car, though. He had several chapters of the solutions manual done, but his car caught on fire. His laptop was destroyed in the fire along with his work on the solutions manual. Eventually, he got another car — a high mileage one in a previous wreck; but, it was drivable at least. He got another laptop as well at some point.

One of talks was about the death of this clerk that worked the service desk at Kroger. I had been helped by him a number of times, so I felt I kinda knew him. He was a heavy man, though. He died quite young, perhaps even in his 30’s. I saw his obituary in the paper because they posted it there on the counter if anyone wanted to sign the accompanying book for the family. The one sentence about his life was that he worked behind the counter at Kroger. Then, it went into who he was survived by.