Lemondrop

Elizabeth Lardie

Why I Chose to Get Arrested and Locked Up for Good

When you work with death on a daily basis, you have two choices: You can get depressed, or you ...

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Life After (Writing About) Death

So, it's safe to say I really need to finish up my gig as an obits editor sooner rather than later. ...

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Staying Quiet, Out of Respect for the Dead

While most of my work with the obituaries involves simply editing and formatting them, occasionally ...

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Have a Nice Day ... Depending Where You Work

Of course I say, "Have a nice day" to people. I worked in retail for a spell, so it's a reflex, and ...

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Death: The Ultimate Party Foul

As with many people, there are days when I feel like my job prevents me from having much of a life. ...

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Never Say 'Die'... Except in the Obits

One of the first items in my newspaper's style guidelines for obituaries reads as follows: "We use ...

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Gallows Humor and the Death of the Day

"Are there any cool dead people today?" It was a question I sickly relished hearing almost every ...

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Coming Face-to-Face with Life and Death

After a mere few months as an obituary writer, I got disturbingly accustomed to saying things like, ...

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Finding the Right Words When Someone Dies

I've always been of the mind that nothing adequate can be said when it comes to the loss of a loved ...

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Meet the Duchess of Death

When I started as the community editor of a small New England newspaper, basic survival was honestly ...

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Lessons from the Obits

Elizabeth Lardie is an editor and columnist at a regional Maine newspaper. She spends her weekday ...

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