Mortality is something all human beings have to grapple with, whether it's by facing the loss of a loved one or thinking about their own deaths. Beth O'Rourke, a 44-year-old mother, nurse, and wife, had to face the unthinkable reality that she would soon lose her own life, and thus, lose her loved ones in the process.
O'Rourke was losing a battle to biliary cancer: She had endured chemotherapy treatments for seven years, but the cancer wasn't letting up.
So before she died, she wrote her own obituary in 2015. But there was nothing sad about her words — rather, they spoke of the life and people she loved.
It was a celebration of life rather than the mourning of a death.
"Of all the things I did in this life, nothing compared to being with Brendan and our children," she wrote on the Heald and Chaimpa funeral home's tribute page. "I fought every day to stay alive and to be with them. No person could ever ask for a more loving and supportive husband, always my champion, always. I enjoyed every moment we shared; the great ones, the sad ones, the easy and the hard."
The owner of the funeral home, Jim Heald, said it was the mother's idea to write her own obituary. She had written it months before her passing.
"She was a planner, and it was in her best efforts to prepare herself and her family for what was coming," he said. "Being in the first person is very different. I write them for the family and she did it firsthand. It's absolutely magnificent."
"By reading the obituary it kind of speaks to Beth and what she was like," her husband, Brendan O'Rourke, said. "She was giving, loving, caring and inspirational.”
Please SHARE this extraordinary mother's final words of wisdom to inspire others to keep moving forward.
