Confessions highlight cancer patient’s self-penned obituary

A Utah man’s self-penned obituary that included all sorts of interesting admissions has left a lot of people pondering how they’d remember themselves when their number is called.

“I would look forward to writing my obituary,” says Ross and Burbank co-host Luke Burbank after reading Val Patterson’s surprising admissions he left behind following his July 10th death to throat cancer.

By all accounts, Patterson lived a full and happy life. “I loved school, Salt Lake City, the mountains, Utah. I was a true Scientist. Electronics, chemistry, physics, auto mechanic, wood worker, artist, inventor, business man, ribald comedian, husband, brother, son, cat lover, cynic. I had a lot of fun. It was an honor for me to be friends with some truly great people,” Patterson wrote in the obituary that appeared this week in The Salt Lake Tribune. He also comes clean on some things that clearly ate at him over the years.

“I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971. I could have left that unsaid, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Also, I really am NOT a PhD. What happened was that the day I went to pay off my college student loan at the U of U, the girl working there put my receipt into the wrong stack, and two weeks later, a PhD diploma came in the mail. I didn’t even graduate, I only had about 3 years of college credit. In fact, I never did even learn what the letters “PhD” even stood for,” Patterson wrote.

Patterson also admitted to some bad behavior involving a “mean ranger” and some vandalism at Yellowstone Park as well as some unspecified incidents that led to a lifetime ban from Disneyland. But most moving perhaps is his obvious affection for his wife Mary Jane, and leaving her behind.

“My regret is that I felt invincible when young and smoked cigarettes when I knew they were bad for me. Now, to make it worse, I have robbed my beloved Mary Jane of a decade or more of the two of us growing old together and laughing at all the thousands of simple things that we have come to enjoy and fill our lives with such happy words and moments. My pain is enormous, but it pales in comparison to watching my wife feel my pain as she lovingly cares for and comforts me. I feel such the “thief” now – for stealing so much from her – there is no pill I can take to erase that pain,” Patterson wrote.

In all, it sparked some deep thought and discussion between Dave Ross and Luke about how or even if they’d want to remember themselves.

Dave says he won’t be writing his own obituary anytime soon. “I don’t think about it. I think about the present and how I’m treating people in the present and my legacy will be my legacy. I can’t control that.”

Would you like to write your own obituary, or would you rather leave it up to someone else?

(Image of Val Patterson from video memorial)