Losing your husband is a kind of devastation that most of us don't even want to think about — especially when your husband is a 43-year-old father to your three kids and also your best friend.
A woman named Crystal Sauser knows about this pain firsthand. Crystal's husband, Eric, died in February 2021 after a two-year battle with cancer. Eric left behind his loving wife and their three kids.
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Crystal decided to honor her husband by writing his obituary herself, rather than have someone who didn't know him do it. But she wanted to write it in a way that really captured who he was and how he lived his life. The obit ran in the local paper, but soon Twitter picked it up and made it go viral.
Eric was clearly a really down-to-earth and wonderful guy. That comes across in what his wife wrote about him. She opened the obit by writing, "Eric A. Sauser, AKA Super Dad, AKA Easy, just a rockin' dude … passed away peacefully in his sleep on Friday, February 26, 2021, at the age of 43 with his wife by his side."
But it gets better. She goes on to write that her husband loved just about everyone and probably let them know it, either drunk or sober, and that he loved his "smoking hot wife." She had to throw that in there, because why not?
Crystal's lighthearted obituary is beautiful to see. Because even though she's certainly in a lot of pain, she didn't want to let the opportunity to share who her husband really was go by. The task had to be daunting, but she did a beautiful job of letting the world see her husband's true colors, even after his death.
She also included, like in most obits, sweet details about Eric, but she did it in her own unique way. She wrote, "He is preceded in death by billions, including his dog Harvey who most of us loved to hate. We are confident they are joyfully reconnecting right now." The dog was a 100-pound lab who loved to lick and jump on guests and was impossible to train.
The part that really made people laugh was when Crystal shared Eric's cause of death, which is usually not a humorous part of an obit, but in this case, it was.
"We are not positive, but we think the cause of death was either leukemia or more likely being 'dead sexy,'" she wrote. "Eric, we've always loved you and miss you already."
Of course, the internet did its thing with the obit, which is now going viral. Crystal told Good Morning America that many people have reached out to her on social media as a result. She says most of the messages are encouraging and commending her for her strength in sharing the uplifting obituary.
So many of the public comments were heartwarming, too. People loved that she was able to write such a touching and funny tribute to her husband. But people also thought that Eric sounded like a really amazing person. Some commenters even said they wished they could've met him to have a beer with him.
She told Good Morning America that he wouldn't even know what to do with all of the attention. "I think his face is so red," she said. "He's completely embarrassed by me saying things in the obituary like, 'He's dead sexy,' but he would be so happy that he wasn't cookie cutter."
Even though what Crystal wrote is lighthearted, she wrote it for a very specific reason. She said that Eric was so strong in the way that he handled his illness, always putting his family first. After his death, she wanted to keep the same tone to truly honor the way he lived.
"I'm sad because I have a broken heart, but I'm not sad because we didn't win our journey," she said. "Eric never wanted pity … we kind of maintained that in writing the obituary."
You can read Eric's full obituary on Legacy.
