How will you be remembered when you die?
One Delaware man was memorialized in a quirky obituary that draws inspiration from an action movie.
Alex Walsh wrote a send-off that depicted her father, Rick Stein, as a man who tried to cheat death from an aggressive cancer by leaving his hospital bed, hijacking a single-engine plane and taking off over the Atlantic Ocean, the Delaware News Journal reported.
The obituary quotes an NTSB investigator as saying “The sea was angry that day. We have no idea where Mr. Stein may be, but any hope for a rescue is unlikely.”
You’ll have to read to the end to find out the obituary was fictional, but it still provided a refreshing look at a man’s life.
"I wasn't sure how it'd be received," Walsh told the Delaware News Journal.
Apparently, it has been a smash on social media, the newspaper reported.
"I have read obits but I must say, never like this one," one woman wrote.
"I would wish my obituary (hopefully not soon) would be equally as humorous," a Georgetown man wrote.
The one part of the obituary that is fact is that Stein, a Wilmington businessman, had recently been diagnosed with a rare, but aggressive form of bile duct cancer. He died Sept. 27, the Delaware News Journal reported.
Walsh was asked to write the obituary by Stein's widow, Susan Stein. Walsh already had one off-the-wall obituary under her belt, penning a tribute in 2013 to her aunt, Alicia Flaherty Stein.
"Some believe she died of Disco Fever, however her battle with cancer for over four years was more likely the actual cause," it read. "Alicia wasn't a fan of cooking but made a mean reservation. If she could, she would offer her condolences to the soon-to-be-unemployed caterers she can no longer hire."
Rick Stein presented a different challenge, Walsh told the Delaware News Journal in an email.
"No words could ever do him justice," she wrote. "But we did our best to come close."
Read the full obituary here.
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