Years ago, I was a fan of a television show called “Dragnet,” in which Los Angeles police detective Joe Friday often pleaded with the crime scene witnesses for “just the facts.” That line became kind of a running joke with the comedians of the day, “Just the facts, Mamm, just the facts.” Anyway, that is what I desire for my obituary “just the facts” – no need to get overly flowery and gushy. In the remainder of this post, I offer my suggestions.
Photograph: Let’s start with the obituary’s photograph. One would think that that issue would be relatively easy, but it brings forth questions involving vanity and how I want to be remembered (e.g., as I looked about the time I died, or how I looked in my “prime”). It also brings up the question of what my resurrected body might look like – but I don’t want to go there at this time.
I don’t have a lot of good head and shoulders shots of me, and I don’t intend to seek out a professional photo for my obituary. Most of the photographs of me are with others, or I am poorly posed. Another problem is my lousy smile caused, in part, by my lousy “English” teeth. Because of a combination of bad teeth and a sorrowful personality, there are not a lot of good pictures of me smiling.
So, after reviewing my photograph albums, it boiled down to three possibilities:
The first was taken when my wife and I were overlooking the city of Florence, Italy, during one of the before-mentioned church tours. That picture was not too bad; except I wasn’t smiling very much.
The second photograph was taken after I woke up in a high-rise condo in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, I was disheveled and wearing my wife’s glasses by mistake – but otherwise it was a pretty good representation of me. My son went on to digitize the photo, adding some kind of weird special effect that spiked my hair. In that photo there is a suggestion of a smile. I eventually used that picture on the cover of BS2: An autobiography and on my business cards – but the digitized look didn’t seem right for an obituary.
The third picture, the one used in this post, is the one that I finally selected. It was the newest – taken during January 2026. I had just won the family UNO (card game) tournament and I was ecstatic. I intentionally concentrated on my smile – to rub it in. My wife did a little editing to get rid of a scoresheet in the foreground and a reflection of my son-in-law (a UNO-loser) in the window.
If you (my wife) can find a better photograph, feel free to substitute.
Note: Going forward, I will use italics to denote the obituary language.
The Start: The “Omaha World Herald” starts most obituaries with the name of the deceased (with varying combinations of formal names, nick names, and initials), followed by the dates of the persons birth and death on the line below. Thus:
Robert Charles Burdett
October 14, 1948 – [Month XX, 20XX]
No need to mention my common moniker (Bob); most people can figure that out – nor is there any need to use the nicknames given to me by some of my former coworkers (e.g., Fu, Foo, Fu Manchu), which I never liked. Some of my North Dakota relatives still think of me as Bobby.
Paragraph 1: The starting paragraph can be the trickiest, as it kind of gets you rolling down one or more divergent tracks. I suggest the traditional “was born” track, with a twist – the inclusion of my baptism and confirmation dates. If you think about it, as a matter of life and death, those dates are more important than when, for example, I got my hole-in-one (April 1, 1994, both Good Friday and April Fools’ Day; Eagle Run #2, 158 yards). So, something like this:
Robert Charles Burdett was born at St. Alexius hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota on October 14, 1948, the son of Charles Grant Burdett and Elizabeth (Senger) Burdett. Robert was baptized into his Catholic faith on October 24, 1948, at St. Mary’s Church in Bismarck. He had his First Communion on June 26, 1955, at St. John’s Catholic Church, in Riverdale, North Dakota. He was also confirmed at that parish on February 8, 1960.
Cause of Death: Many obituaries get into the cause of the deceased person’s death. Over the years, as I have lived, I have wondered how I will die. At this point in my life, I have pretty much ruled out “shot by a lover’s husband,” “shot by a lover’s wife,” and “skydiving accident.” The only way that the latter might happen is if a skydiver falls on me.
I am increasingly worried, however, that my cause of death may be, “intentional nuclear war,” or “accidental nuclear war.” Those concerns probably date back to my days in grade school, when I huddled under my desk during “civil defense” drills (as if that would help). Those worries were exaggerated when I moved close to the US Strategic Command Headquarters; and after I came to understand a modern day “Catch-22” – our leaders are egomaniacs, and only egomaniacs want to become leaders (e.g., go through the election process, possibly get assassinated).
I noticed in today’s newspaper that the “Doomsday Clock” is at 85 seconds before midnight; doomsday is now 4 seconds closer than it has ever been before. As a cause of death, this discussion is kind of irrelevant because if there is some sort of nuclear incident, there most likely would be no funeral or obituary. If lucky, maybe a mass grave.
Most likely, my death will be from something medical, like cancer or heart failure. The doctors have been watching some sort of “shadow” in my lungs for the past year or so, but thankfully it has not grown. If I had to guess today, I suspect that I will die of “kidney failure,” or something like that related to my Type-2 diabetes.
I ran across a cool quote recently (First Things, February 2026) by Lewis Thomas, the former president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He was quoted as saying, “If we ever do achieve freedom from most of today’s diseases, or even complete freedom from disease, we will perhaps terminate by drying out and blowing away on a light breeze, but we will still die.” Sounds a bit like cremation to me.
Anyway, as regards my obituary, some people seem to be interested in this matter, and it sometimes heads off nosy questions. My inclination would be to not include anything in the obituary on my cause of death – or just make it brief – just the facts, please.
Education: The brief statement below may ring a bell with some people that I went to school with – especially those that still live in Omaha. So, something like this:
Robert graduated from Bismarck Junior College (1968), North Dakota State University (BSIE, 1970), Creighton University (MBA, 1975), and the Archdiocese of Omaha Catholic Biblical School (2003-7). He was a lifetime fan of Creighton athletics, especially their men’s basketball and women’s volleyball teams.
Work – Engineering: The brief statement below may ring a bell with some people that I once worked with. So, something like this:
Robert worked (1970-2001) in various quality control engineering positions at the Omaha Works of Western Electric, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Avaya.
Work – Writing: Its seems that I am always looking for a way to sell some books. Maybe something like this might work:
After he retired from Avaya, Robert became an unsuccessful writer, author, and playwright. He was especially proud of his play, “The Polesworth Circle: The Education of William Shakespeare”) and the four volume “A Catholic Prays Scripture” series. A full list of his books and other writings can be found at amazon.com/author/bobbyburdett or robertcburdett.com.
Note the use of the word “unsuccessful” above. Make sure that it is not inadvertently changed. While I very much enjoyed writing and the challenge of marketing those books, I can in no way categorize my efforts as anything else than unsuccessful (just the facts, please).
Family: How about something simple, like this:
On September 18, 1981, Robert married the love of his life – Terry Teruko Oshima. Their wedding was held at Dowd Memorial Chapel in the village of Boys Town. Robert and Terry settled into their new home in the El Dorado subdivision of Omaha. It was there that they raised their three children: Lisa, Vanessa, and Matthew.
Preceded by: This is where it starts to get tricky. I hope that no names must be added to the list, as I would prefer to go first. Hopefully this suffices:
Robert was preceded in death by his parents.
Succeeded by: Hopefully no changes are required to this list:
He is succeeded by his wife Terry, sister Marianne Schuster and her husband Roland (Henderson, NV), son Matthew Burdett (and wife Emily of Omaha), daughter Vanessa (and her husband Jeff Alicea of Tampa, Florida), daughter Lisa (and her husband Patrick Garrison of Glendale, Arizona), five grandchildren, two aunts, and numerous cousins, nephews and nieces. He is also succeeded by his wife’s brothers Roger (Kate) Oshima and Roy (Jo) Oshima; and sister Grace (Liu) Dargis.
Funeral Service: Something like this:
MEMORIAL SERVICE to be held, [day], [date]. 10:30 a.m., at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church, 15353 Pacific Street, Omaha. The family will be available for fellowship in the chapel at 10:00 a.m. A luncheon will immediately follow the service at the church.
Since the service is not a Mass, the “Memorial Service” nomenclature is acceptable. Per the church’s funeral guide, “funerals are usually held at 10:00 or 10:30 AM. This will obviously have to be worked out at the time but since I expect the service to be short, I believe that a 10:30 AM service would work out best. It would allow for some visitation time before the service and a timely luncheon.
Inurnment: I just found out today that the term for internment and burial related to cremation is “inurnment.” As regards the obituary, how about something like this:
INURNMENT to be held later that day by the family (private).
Memorials: Something like this:
In lieu of flowers, the deceased requests that donations be made to the Holy Family Shrine, in Gretna, Nebraska.
Livestreaming: I don’t see the need to expend any money on a livestream of the funeral, unless my sister can’t make it up from Las Vegas. Do whatever you wish and add appropriate wording to the obituary, if required.
Part 5 Tomorrow = The Readings