Hello, My name is Christine and I am addicted to obituaries...

I know it's morbid. Very morbid. It started out innocently enough. A glance here and there to see if anyone I know or knew had passed. Then I got my first nursing job...it became a more often than here or there thing. Move to my second nursing job... now I am hooked.
I see people most of the time at the end of their life, and unfortunately they become their disease, their meds, or their complaints. It would be nice to say that I have time to learn more about these people while they are still alive. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. I have maybe five minutes to spend with a resident here or there, to just talk. Most of the time it's patient care, or giving them pills.
So when someone passes on that I knew from the nursing home I will obsessively search for their obit. (ok so when I say I knew them it means I've given them pills or taken care of them in some form or another). When I read their obit I am facinated by the little tiny glance of the person they were before they were the peg tube in room 8, or the diabetic in room 6, or the stroke in room 10.
The thing I REALLY like about obituaries is that they usually focus on the good, or major accomplishments in a persons life. I figure i have seen these people in their most vulnerable state, after their lives have been put into half a room, and they have lost alot of their former abilities. To me it's nice to know that the peg tube in room 8 was once a carpenter, or the diabetic in room 6 is a retired nurse, or the stroke in room 10 spent her life raising many children who are now successful members of society.
I'd like to think that me reading about them after they are gone is a way to honor them. Although I could just be nosey.
I've gotten away from reading only obits from people I have worked with now...I read other ones that spark my interest...people i've never heard of. People are just plain facinating, and so is what people say about them after they have left this world.