69-Year-Old Mom’s Touchingly Hilarious, Self-Written Obituary Goes Viral
“So…I was born; I blinked; and it was over,” wrote the late Emily Debrayda Phillips in the bittersweet obituary she wrote, which has family and strangers alike mourning her death from cancer last week (Photo: the Phillips Family).
She may be gone, but 69-year-old Florida mother and grandmother Emily Debrayda Phillips is still bringing her family joy. The former teacher died March 25 from pancreatic cancer — just 29 days after she was diagnosed. But before that day, she penned her own obituary, filled with sweet recollections and jokes that, said her daughter Bonnie Phillips Upright, “helps put a smile on our faces a little bit sooner than we thought.” (Upright did not immediately respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment).
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The bittersweet farewell, posted Tuesday in the Florida Times-Union, has been bringing a tear to the eye and grin to the cheeks of the thousands who’ve taken a moment to read the sassy letter, penned in hospice. “It pains me to admit it, but apparently, I have passed away,” Phllips begins. “Everyone told me it would happen one day but that’s simply not something I wanted to hear, much less experience. Once again I didn’t get things my way! That’s been the story of my life all my life.”
Her goodbye quickly became the website’s top-read story, and has nearly 5,000 likes on Facebook. “I did not know her but would have loved to have been in her circle what a CLASS ACT!” writes one person touched by her wit and candor on the page. “This made me laugh and cry,” adds another. “I didn’t know you, but GOSH would I have loved to.” All obituaries, says yet another, “should be the story of your life. A beautiful gift to leave.”
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The words have been a comfort to family during these dark days. “I hate that she’s gone,” Upright told ABC News, noting that her mom would have been “tickled pink” with her sudden celebrity. “I hate that that’s reason for this. But by golly, I could not be more proud.”
Phillips was pretty proud too — of the life she’d created. “No buildings named after me; no monuments erected in my honor,” she writes. “But I DID have the chance to know and love each and every friend as well as all my family members. How much more blessed can a person be?”
Photo: the Phillips Family
The self-described “loving wife,” wed for 47 years to the “man of my dreams,” Charlie Phillips, told family not to cry over her passing. “Today I am happy and I am dancing. Probably naked.”
Reminiscing about her childhood, she cites the Miss North Carolina pageant (“I twirled my baton to the tune of ‘Dixie.’ It could have been no other way”) and her grandmother “wringing a chicken’s neck so we could have Sunday dinner.”
Photo: the Phillips Family
Recent happy times are included as well, with special attention to her grandchildren. “Just when I thought I was too old to fall in love again, I became a grandmother,” Phillips writes. “And my five grand-angels stole not only my heart, but also spent most of my money.”
The jest makes her sentiments all the more treasured, says Upright. “It was one of the most special moments of my life to hear my mother tell her life story in her words…So as tragic and as sad as death is, her courage and her bravery in facing her death and in wanting to leave a mark her way is incredibly special to the family.”
And it’s been special to all who read Phillips’ words. As one visitor to the condolence page puts it, “Emily has touched more lives than she’ll ever know.”
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