Jean Oddi wanted the final say, and the Ohio woman got one with style, spunk and sarcasm. It was a sassy sendoff courtesy of her daughter and granddaughter.
"I was born. I lived. I died. I hate to admit it, but evidently, I died," according to the obituary that appeared online at Legacy.com and was published in the Columbus Dispatch. "I guess, after all these years, God finally figured out where to put me."
Obituaries leave the deceased at the mercy of family members. Those relatives may have incorrect information or, in the case of a Texas man last month, an ax to grind with the chance for the last word. But Oddi, who died Feb. 20 in Columbus at 91, received an obituary that would have made the self-proclaimed Queen of Sass proud.
"She always got the first word and the last word," daughter Casey Oddi Clark said Wednesday.
Clark, with the help of her daughter, Melissa Falter, wrote the obituary for her mother in Oddi’s voice. It cost the family $1,250, the Dispatch reported, but family members said it was worth the cost.
"My friends would always say, 'She's wonderful,'" Clark told the Dispatch. "I'd say, 'Yeah? You want her?'"
The obituary minces no words and is sprinkled with obscenities. She loved drinking hot coffee, telling jokes and stories from the “bad old days,” and “teaching my granddaughter dirty songs.”
In the obituary, Oddi notes that she was the daughter of a “wonderful and beautiful woman” and an “SOB man.” She chides her daughter for not naming Melissa after her and was considers “a crazy teenager, a loving wife, a hard worker, a loyal friend and a hands-on grandmother.”
The day after Oddi died was Clark’s birthday. For years, Oddi forgot when it was, so Clark would send her mother flowers to remind her, the Dispatch reported. Falter now does the same thing for her mother.
But as usual, Oddi found a way to top that tradition. Clark said that when she turned 40, she received a birthday card for the first time in decades — 40 of them, to be exact.
"She sent each one individually stamped and mailed individually," Clark told the Dispatch. "She put $1 in one like it was for a 3-year-old. It was priceless."
In the obituary, Oddi reminds readers that the middle finger is “sign language,” and when someone gives, “take.” When someone takes, “scream.”
“Oh, and don’t tell anyone what kind of day to have,” she says.
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