Honest Obituaries

Several months ago there was an obituary placed in a local newspaper citing the death of one Marianne Johnson-Reddick. However, it wasn’t your typical 'she was the greatest gal in the world' obit, but a litany of complaints about the abuse her children had to endure while the deceased was still alive. When she died, her son sang 'ding dong the wicked witch is dead.' I think it’s a good idea, honest obituaries, and lovely to see an end to phony praise-filled obituaries followed by maudlin eulogies to people who were rotten eggs from the get-go. So with all that said, here’s Marianne Johnson-Reddick’s obit, as written by her son Patrick and co-written by his sister Katherine.



‘Marianne Theresa Johnson-Reddick
January 4, 1935 - Aug. 30, 2013

Marianne Theresa John­son-Reddick born Jan 4, 1935 and died alone on Sept. 30, 2013. She is sur­vived by her 6 of 8 children whom she spent her lifetime torturing in every way pos­sible. While she neglected and abused her small chil­dren, she refused to allow anyone else to care or show compassion towards them. When they became adults she stalked and tortured anyone they dared to love. Everyone she met, adult or child was tortured by her cruelty and exposure to violence, criminal activity, vulgarity, and hatred of the gentle or kind human spirit.


On behalf of her children whom she so abrasively ex­posed to her evil and vio­lent life, we celebrate her passing from this earth and hope she lives in the after­life reliving each gesture of violence, cruelty, and shame that she delivered on her children. Her surviv­ing children will now live the rest of their lives with the peace of knowing their nightmare finally has some form of closure.
Most of us have found peace in helping those who have been exposed to child abuse and hope this message of her final passing can re­vive our message that abus­ing children is unforgiv­able, shameless, and should not be tolerated in a “hu­mane society”. Our greatest wish now, is to stimulate a national movement that mandates a purposeful and dedicated war against child abuse in the United States of America.’



I have sometimes wondered about the eulogy one of my siblings may have read about my mother when she passed on. I was not at her funeral, nor did I want to go. Perhaps they didn’t write one, but I’m sure someone stood up and true to the ritual of funeral, spoke of her virtue and loving nature. I thought I might correct that.

My mother wasn’t the criminal,vulgar, dirt-bag that Marianne Johnson-Reddick obviously was, and she didn't knock us about and stuff us in a cold bath, but she was still a selfish, narcissistic hag who complained ad nausea about her husband, her children, her deprived circumstances, her ruined opportunities, trampling out joy at every opportunity with her grumblings and heavy sighs and ruining every Christmas with her whiny cries of - What  about me?