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Writer's 'joyous' obituary for her mom has people laughing and crying

Dr. Maureen Brennan-Weaver had "a cackle that crashed through rooms."
@caityweaver via Twitter
/ Source: TODAY

New York Times journalist Caity Weaver has written a masterful obituary for her mother that is making people laugh and cry at the same time.

The tribute, which is going viral on Twitter, tells the story of Dr. Maureen Brennan-Weaver, a coupon-clipping, 6-foot-tall podiatrist with a “cackle that crashed through rooms.”

“Dr. Brennan-Weaver could not stop herself from buying shoes for patients if she spotted just what they needed while shopping,” Weaver shared. “She categorically did not do house calls, except for patients she ‘really liked’; of these, there were so many she had to set aside whole days for house calls.”

She “occasionally accepted” homemade baked goods as payment. 

Weaver described her mom as a “pathologically generous” woman who “clipped coupons for diapers and left them in the grocery store baby aisle.” At one point, Brennan-Weaver “employed a skilled housekeeper but found her a more lucrative job.”

“If you mentioned a thing you liked, she’d get you 11 when she found them at a great price,” Weaver wrote. “When a young nephew wished for a plastic microscope, she found him a real one (at a great price) and painstaking prepared hundreds of slides for his study.”

Brennan-Weaver was an avid gardener. In lieu of sending flowers, the family is asking that people plant “a little something in her memory.”

“Please also be aware (in her memory) that garden centers mark perennials down to unbelievable prices in the fall,” Weaver noted.

Brennan-Weaver passed away on June 14, at her home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. According to her “favorite child,” she died "before discovering what, if anything, she was afraid of.”

“This is the most joyous obituary I’ve ever read. Sending love and light,” essayist Laura Leigh Abby wrote on Twitter.

Added Mindy Kaling, “I am so sorry for your loss. And for the whole world’s loss! Your mom sounds fabulous.”

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