A son’s obituary for his father has gone viral. A son who said goodbye to his father bittersweetly, wanting in the moments of pain to always have a smile.
Charles Boehm of Houston, Texas wrote an obituary for his 74-year-old father Robert Boehm in the most unconventional, hilarious way with an honest account of who his father really was.
As b says he didn’t want to show disrespect to his dead father, but wanted to pay a sincere tribute to the man who raised him as well as an opportunity for his small town of Clarendon, Texas to once again laugh at their beloved fellow citizen .
Read what he wrote in his father’s obituary
“Robert Adolph Boehm, in keeping with his lifelong devotion to his own rules of decency, uttered his last unintelligible and possibly unnecessary curse on October 6, 2024, just before tripping backwards over some biiip stupid thing and hitting his head on the floor” begins the obituary.
Boehm then recounted his father’s life from beginning to end, saying that at his birth in 1950 “God happily broke the mold immediately and tried to cover the elements.”
He then recalled his special days as a father of four. “Raised Catholic, Robert managed to get his wife Diane pregnant (three times) quickly enough to avoid being drafted into the Vietnam War, giving birth to Michelle, John and Charlotte between 1967 and 1972,” the obituary reads. “Much later, with Robert possibly worried about the brewing conflict in Grenada, Charles was born in 1983.”
Charles also recalled that his father, who worked as a “semi-professional lorry driver – not to be confused with the professional semi-truck driver”, had a penchant for collecting antique guns as well as harmonicas.
His love of the harmonica caused his “beloved dogs to howl constantly at the oddest hours of the night to entertain his many neighbors and occasionally give them to his many, many, many grandchildren and great-grandchildren to play loudly during long road trips with their parents,” he said.
Additionally, Robert’s late-life hobby of shooting guns led him to “punch not one but two holes in the dashboard of his car.”
What does he mention about his mother’s death?
As the obituary also states, Charles’ mother and Robert’s wife, Diane, died in February. “God took pity on her,” the couple’s son wrote, adding that his mother “gone for some peace and quiet.” “Without Diane at his side to entertain her, Robert focused on entertaining you, the fine citizens of the city of Clarendon, Texas.”
“It’s God’s problem now”
He continues: “We’ve all done our best to enjoy/get over Robert’s antics up to this point, but now it’s God’s problem.”
Why did he write such a humorous obituary?
The humorous obituary went viral, garnering significant attention online as many expressed their wish they had met Robert, the Washington Post reported.
“Clarendon is a town of 2,000,” his son told the paper. “I knew a lot of people would love it, but I was shocked to see how popular it became.”
Apart from the jokes, however, Charles also wanted to refer to the isolation that his father felt in the last months of his life after the death of his wife and also to the loving care that the locals offered him. “When I tried to get him some mental health help, he admitted he was scared and wanted me to be there with him,” Charles said. “We all visited him when we could and the good people of Clarendon looked after him and helped him a lot. But it was hard for him to see my mother’s empty chair and me living 900 kilometers away.”
With this obituary, Charles wants to raise public awareness of loneliness in old age. “I have to say that if I want anything to come out of this, it’s for people everywhere to support the mental health of people in small rural towns.
As for the funeral, the family said they encouraged visitors to “dust off any outdated or inappropriate combinations of clothing you have on hand to attend. A tip jar will be available out front and flowers are also accepted.’
