RIP, Jens Zorn

  

At the cemetery in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

     Readers sometimes mistake the obituaries that run in newspapers for the obituaries published by funeral homes. The former are news stories written by journalists summarizing the lives of notable persons for general readers.
     The latter are paid praise, usually generated with maximum emotion but little art by recently bereaved families, and of interest primarily to other loved ones and friends of the departed. (When those run in the newspaper, they're called "death notices," fine print funeral home obituaries considered paid advertising).
     Lately, grieving families fill out a form, and AI generates an obituary for them. My old college roommate Kier recently asked me to render one such effort, about his mother, into English. I was surprised — at this point I shouldn't be — by what a wordy, trite, exaggerated, godawful mess the funeral home considered acceptable. If this is the best AI can do, I'd say, time to protect your assets against the coming crash:

     "Jody's journey from her early years was marked by determination, passion, and an unwavering generosity that left an indelible impact on all those who knew her..."

     "A woman of many talents and interests... "

     "[Her] spirit will live on in the hearts of those she touched, forever remembered as a beacon of love, devotion, and warmth." 

     I cut it in half, losing lines of fluff that, being true for anyone, are true for no one, adding information I knew about her laudable life, allowing her the dignity of having "died" rather than "passed away," a euphemism that fools nobody. Death is what this is about.

     Sunday I read with interest the obituary of Jens Zorn, 94, published by the Nie Family Funeral Home of Ann Arbor, Michigan. For starters, because he was my friend Eric's father. Then because it was so well-written, by Eric I assume. Here's the first paragraph:

     "Jens C. Zorn, 94, was a physicist, an artist, a teacher, an administrator, a musician, a husband, a father and grandfather. He died at St. Joseph Hospital in the company of his son and daughter early on the morning of Jan. 5, 2026, of a cascading constellation of the maladies of age."

     A less talented writer would have said his father "filled many roles" or some such thing, but Eric just laid them out, giving the same emphasis to his professional career — "physicist" — as he did to his hobbies "musician" and his family roles — "husband" etc. Itself a triumph of balance and humanity which readers of Eric's know is his forte.
     Did that cause of death jump out at you? "A cascading constellation of the maladies of age." Now I've read thousands of obituaries, and never encountered the cause of death described  with anywhere near that kind of poetry. Cause of death is a delicate moment in an obituary. Too vague and you risk implying something dire — particularly with young people, who kill themselves and have the fact vigorously ignored — too specific and you risk marring a long, productive life with a sticky end. At 94, no cause is needed — you're old, you died — but Eric coined a beautiful phrase that is also unique. No one has written that about anyone's death before in the history of ever. I checked.
     A phrase like that keeps a reader going, hungry for more, though actually it was the parallels between Prof. Zorn and my own father's life that kept striking me. Both married in 1954 — Prof . Zorn was a year older than my dad. Both were nuclear physicists. Both were artists later in life.
     Here they departed wildly. Even more striking, in the more literal sense of being beaten, is that Prof. Zorn was the center of a vast network of friends and associates, and I, being genetically self-absorbed,  couldn't help but contrast that to my own father: a solitary, friendless man who basically worked by himself in a corner of NASA — I used to joke he was his own division. The paragraph that sent me sulking like Saul in his tent was this:

     "Jens was a warm, generous, curious and humble man who was in touch with friends and relatives around the world. He had lively conversations around the dining table about politics, sports, technology, art and social issues until just days before he died."  

     What would I write about my own dad, when the time comes? "Steinberg was a cold, tightfisted, hidebound and vainglorious man who kept an iron focus on himself and his own matchbox jammed with obsessions, isolated, alienating everyone he knew, starting with his brother, his children and grandchildren whom he never could even feign an interest in...."

     There was more. Prof. Zorn's sculptures are displayed across North America. My father, while feverish about his watercolors, would never lower himself by attempting to put them in a gallery, or promote them beyond haranguing whoever happened to be in front of him. 
     Envy is an ugly emotion, and I immediately shook it off. We are all dealt our cards and play them, best we can. My father's father was described to me by one of his other grandchildren as "a monster" who beat his sons. My father was a considerable improvement over that, and I like to think I'm a vast improvement over him, and am certain that my sons are such a huge improvement on their father that the only valid emotion I am permitted to have toward my lot is gratitude, gratitude and more gratitude. 
     Life might be understood backwards, but it is lived forward. I finished Jens Zorn's obituary thinking that while it is a little late for me to learn a musical instrument, it is not too late to tend to my own tattered network of friends. For starters, I reached out to Eric, asked if this post would be too intrusive, and reminded him we're overdue for lunch.