my name is Jeff Thatcher as she said and
my first job out of college was at a
newspaper and when you work for a
newspaper more than anything else you
want a byline you want your name to
appear under a headline preferably a big
giant headline on the front page and
today I want to talk to you how I
learned the hard way that there are no
by lines on obituaries and it all
started with my first big job interview
in 2004 I had left the newspaper
business and I was interviewing in
Washington DC for a big position
creative position at this New York
advertising / marketing agency and I was
sitting at the the table for the
interview and this bigwig executive
leaned forward he put his both hands on
the table and he said hoping to stomp me
what is the most memorable thing you've
ever written and to be honest with you
my response was immediate and it
surprised both him and both me he
thought I was going to say Oh was the
Kellogg's cereal City USA that I worked
on or he thought I might say oh you know
it's the Ohio State athletics Hall of
Fame that I worked on or the CNN studio
tour that I worked on but no it was none
of those things I leaned forward and I
said my brothers were bitchu airy just a
few years before my brother had died and
there's one thing you need to know about
my brother is he is the oldest of 11
children you can see a picture of our
family right there from 1989 it was the
last time we were all together and my
nephew posted this picture on Reddit
last year and he said you can see the
table he said my mother's racially mixed
family 1989 and he posted this picture
and of course if you're gonna be the
oldest of a multiracial family with
adopted and biological kids you're gonna
be a special son and my brother was the
golden child now
the one thing is inching about this
picture is we know when you post
something on reddit people like to
comment on pictures and some of the
comments that we got were kind of
interesting somebody said this could be
the front page of a website for
community college and the next person
commented said it looks like camp
counselors from a Friday the 13th movie
and then it gets better from there are
they looking to add someone in a
wheelchair because I have a few friends
I could ask for them
next it was if this isn't as 90 sitcom I
don't know what is followed by looks
like three generations of the Power
Rangers cast my mother insisted on all
the colors more like a United Colors of
Benetton poster and finally or the main
characters in a foreign language
textbook from the 1990s but this is my
brother Stewart and Stewart had a very
successful and frustrating career in the
military he wanted to fly helicopters
and he ended up shooting artillery
shells and howitzers don't fly and then
he went and had a very frustrating but
successful business career where he made
a ton of money selling billboards of all
things and when he retired from that at
the ripe old age of 39 he decided to
fulfill his one passion in life and that
was his passion for flying and so he
learned how to fly
he bought airplanes he had an aerobatic
airplane he learned to fly jets and and
eventually he decided to fly gyro planes
which are these kind of helicopter /
airplane mix if you ever seen the Mad
Max movies it's the little kind of like
buzz fly helicopters that buzz around
and he had this great idea
that it would be fun to load up his gyro
plane with candy and fly from the Augen
Hinckley International National Airport
in Ogden Utah to a church three miles
away where they were having a children's
party and buzz the children and drop
candy from the sky I mean what could be
better right you're you're playing and a
children's party out in the grass and
this little helicopter comes in and
drops candy to you well my brother took
off and there was a storm on the horizon
and a gust of wind came up and 400 feet
over the runway he crashed and he died
and very very tragic story the only
thing that gives us any degree of solace
that if you believe in the afterlife and
you go to the the gates of judgment if
you say I was going to drop candy to
children I think you're going to be okay
if so there's no worries there but the
first thing that happened is my mother
calls me and I volunteer to write the
obituary because I'm you know I'm a
writer that's what I do as a profession
and so I would love to do the writing so
the first thing I do is I sit down at
the computer again well going back to
that question what's the most memorable
thing you've ever written well it just
just flew out of me as I typed my
brother's obituary and the first thing I
started with were these Yelton Elton
John lyrics I missed the earth so much I
miss my wife it's lonely out in space on
such a timeless flight it seemed to me
as the writer of this obituary that that
was the perfect way to open my brother's
obituary he was a pilot he loved flying
he loved touching the sky and this song
really captures the the pain and the
remorse of losing your loved ones
because of that love itself next I went
for something in the opening that most
people avoid in obituaries I hate
reading obituaries when you don't know
how they died they just say so-and-so
died and then you have to google it and
try to find out well how did they die I
was a cancer was it that accident what
actually happened was a long time
illness please tell me how did they die
and so I said okay I'm gonna just tell
you pretty pretty clearly in here that
he was he was Stu he was an experienced
aerobatic pilot and flight instructor
and the gyro plane a small helicopter
hybrid crashed while traveling to
deliver candy to a church primary party
so mission accomplished great I'm going
to tell people exactly how he died well
then of course you have to give some
support tips about his life and I was
trying to avoid cliches more than
anything else here but a former officer
in the United States Army and successful
entrepreneur he spent the last four
years of his career flying right
book and being a great husband to live
his wife of 20 years and a great dad to
his 15 year old daughter Sydney and
eight-year-old son Tyson he was every
bit the playful kid that Tyson is and
Sydney's music on the violin would melt
his heart he often commented that the
last thing he did before taking off was
to look at a family picture in the last
few months he was able to take a long
anticipation with just his wife and a
family trip to Nauvoo Illinois while he
dyes firm in the faith with all the
promises that entails words could not
apply actly to scribe our loss very very
true and then of course you have to
mention you know the other family
involved here and I specifically didn't
want to mention all eleven children
because that would really break up the
emotional flow of the obituary so I said
you know he's the lowliest of eleven
children and was everyone's favorite
uncle he was survived by his mother and
father by his father-in-law and
mother-in-law and his youth was full of
all the usual honours he was an Eagle
Scout he went on mission for his church
and while he did have all those honors
his greatest gift was as a leader he was
the quintessential big brother he really
was he took upon that mantle with pride
and compassion of being the oldest in
the family
he was truly the golden child and then
of course in the obituary you have to
give the details when the scene was
going to be held and we wanted to
express condolences because there was
one of the dads from the church party
with him in the Jarrell plane at the
time who also perished and died and so
we expressed our condolences to that
family as well so I quickly just with
tears just raining down my face and at
work typed up this obituary and I
thought I was gonna take me a long time
to write and it did it took me like 20
minutes and it's just boom it came out I
typed it I sent it off to Utah then I
went and I grabbed my wife and my three
kids and we hopped on an airplane and we
flew out to my parents home and this is
my parents home thanks to Google
Streetview
in Farmington Utah and so I pull in the
parking lot is cramped you'll the
driveways full of cars and I pull in and
before I can even make it to the
sidewalk my now oldest brother Aaron the
second child in her family he meets me
on the sidewalk with
newspaper in hand the newspaper that
have published the obituary and he said
jest we've got a problem I need to talk
to you I said okay and he he thrusts the
obituary into my my hands I grabbed the
obituary and the first thing I notice as
I'm reading obituaries is they went
ahead and cut the lyrics from Rocket Man
it was gone and I said to myself I'm
like well I said well Aaron was my
brother and I said well Aaron I can't
understand why they would you know cut
the lyrics to Rocket Man at the obituary
they probably are conservative and
thought it was inappropriate to have
Elton John in the obituary but you know
it's kind of sad and a little frustrated
that they think they cut it but I can
live with that it's okay and then the
next thing I know I read on they added
all these stupid funeral cliches that
you see all the time in obituaries you
know died doing what he loved and left
his wife with no regrets no he had
regrets he died that was his regret I
know he was regretting that and then it
said he would call home by a loving
father in heaven and listen I believe in
a loving father in heaven but no he was
called home because he made a mistake he
decided to fly when he shouldn't have
and the last thing he was thinking
before he crashed was not oh goody
it was oh crap I'm gonna die and so I
was like I specifically didn't want to
put those things in the in the obituary
why did they have to do that and of
course my safe they I'm blaming the guy
in the suit at the funeral home who
makes this his business and thinks this
is how it has to be all the time and
then finally by the way my brother this
whole time my brother is going no no no
that's not it I tell him about the you
know the the lyrics it he's like no no
that's not it so I tell him bout this
cliches and complain about these no
that's not it
keep reading said okay and then I see
that he's survived by his brothers and
sisters Aaron Deena Joel Allison Rachel
seung-hyun Kim Deborah Lynette Eric
everyone in the family and I said yeah
yeah I see how they put everybody in
here's I said you know I specifically
decided not to put all of us in here
because I really thought it broke up the
emotional flow of the obituaries I was
writing here and he goes no that's not
it he's like getting really mad at me
and I goes no that's not it look I said
what do you mean he goes look I said
what do you mean they ruined it with my
they ruined my obituary with this
editing he goes look at it again do you
see anything wrong with that list I'm
not in it they left me out of the
obituary that I wrote and not my brother
thought I was going to be furious and I
just laughed and he's like why are you
laughing
I'm like I'm laughing because writers
never get credit for anything we don't I
mean do you guys know who wrote It's a
Wonderful Life right Frank Capra like
one of the best Jimmy Stewart one of the
best movies of all time do you know who
wrote it probably nobody knows who wrote
it right cuz Flanders don't get any
credit Robert risk and by the way Robert
Riskin wrote wrote the play right now I
don't know if it's a true story or not
it's apocryphal but somebody says that
when Frank Capra the director was being
kind of a jerk
Robert risk or risk and threw a white
piece of paper out and said put the
Capra touch on this it was blank so you
know and if you look at like magazines
write Fast Company you know they have
design issues and they Johnny I have you
from Apple and Wired magazine has the
design issue I trust you Wired magazine
has never had an issue called the
writers featuring famous business
writers there just aren't any famous
business writers because guess what if
you're gonna write for credit you're
going to be very disappointed in this
life so the deeper question is this and
this is what I want to talk to you about
today and then we talked about prisons
when we talk about ideas what is the big
idea that this story of this why did I
laugh at the end of the bitumen
did I write that obituary to get credit
did I write that obituary to actually
have it published in the newspaper
not really I wrote that obituary because
I wanted
and I wanted to feel I wanted to
work through my own grief by writing we
joke sometimes about you know write the
email and not send it but that actually
is what you should do
yes do write the email and then don't
send it because writing that email is
gonna help you think and it's gonna help
you feel sometimes you should send it
though right I can see this woman back
there and I you've got an email I know
that you're thinking about sending and I
think maybe you should send it right we
write to help figure things out now this
TEDx is coming to you from William Mason
High School in Mason Ohio just outside
of Cincinnati and based on what I hear
in the news there's some obsession about
grades here at Mason high school right
and foul the Victorians right and
there's students here who care have been
right for grades I just wanted a
rightness he's not good enough I have to
have an A+ and now my kids went to Mason
I know about that my brother had like
that my son I'm sorry my son Joel had
like a 4.2 at Mason he's like wasn't
even in the top 10% not even close so
but guess what students do not write for
grades we have an English teacher in the
room tonight now the smart thing for me
to do would tell you to write for her
that she is your audience but you know
what forget your teacher do not write
for her write for you because you need
to learn how to think and you need to
learn how to feel and the most important
audience in the world is you it doesn't
matter if you ever have a byline it
doesn't matter if you get an A on the
paper what matters is how you think and
how you feel while you write because
writing makes you think don't do a
PowerPoint because you do a PowerPoint
it's like reading every fifth line of a
essay
actually sit down and whether it's with
a pencil or a pen or at your computer or
if you're really weird a typewriter
right you know what a typewriter is okay
good but sit down and actually write
because if you can write and if you can
write for yourself then you will be a
better thinker and you will better be a
better feeling feeler and you will
contribute so much more to yourself and
to the world as a whole
thank you very much
[Applause]