Woman Uses Her Obituary To Troll Trump

Talk about going out with a bang: This week, an Ohio woman used her obituary to troll Donald Trump. Elizabeth “Liz” Smith of Norwalk, Ohio, passed away on Monday at the age of 87 and decided to liven up her obit with some truly epic sass. And why not? If you can’t say what you really think in your obituary, of all places, where can you say it?

Smith’s obituary, published on February 14 in the Sandusky Register, includes the information you might expect: A brief history of her life, family, work, and travels. But then we get this zinger: “Liz is smiling now, not to be living during the Trump Presidency.” I’m crying.

Smith’s daughter, Deborah Lucal, told the Sandusky Register that her mother, who was a member of the Huron County Democratic Party and a poll worker, was inspired by another obituary that expressed a similar sentiment. “She had seen that in somebody else’s obituary and kind of made a note of that,” Lucal recalled. “She doesn’t like the man, she never has, thought he was a pompous ass.” And so she decided to make a little note of her own. (As Cleveland.com points out, Smith isn’t the first to use an obit to make a political dig. In 2015 and 2016, at least two people used their obituaries to urge readers not to vote for Hillary Clinton, and another used his to advise against voting for Trump.)

As delightful as Smith’s political trolling is, it shouldn’t overshadow what seems to have been an adventurous and giving life. Smith volunteered for the Girl Scouts for 45 years, served her Catholic church in numerous capacities, visited nursing home shut-ins, and volunteered for the United Fund and Salvation Army soup kitchen. She was an intrepid traveler; in addition to going heli-hiking in the Canadian Rockies in her 70s, she visited Yellowstone Park, went whitewater rafting in West Virginia and Idaho, took the Orient Express from Vienna to Paris, and toured all of Nova Scotia.

Smith’s obituary also asks that friends and family attending her funeral wear red, her favorite color, instead of the customary black. “She said, when I go, don’t you dare wear black. It's going to be a big party,” Lucal told the Sandusky Register. Frankly, she sounds amazing. Rest in peace, Liz Smith.