This Computer Programmer’s Clever Obituary Is A Perfect, Poignant Send-Off

What do you do when a beloved family member who is a computer programmer and educator passes away far too soon? If you’re me, you drink codeine cough syrup and scream obscenities (I don’t handle things well). If you’re the Fink family of Belleville, Illinois, you draft a perfect obituary no one can forget.

Bill Fink was only 46 and is survived by his wife, Rhonda, their children (Cassidy and William John), and many other relatives. What Fink’s brother did with his obituary was a brilliant tip of the hat to his loved vocation. Via Renner Funeral Homes:

Let it be known that on this cycle, program William Ralph “Bill” Fink, 46, of Belleville, IL, born July 28, 1969, in Belleville, IL, encountered an unhandled exception in his core operating system, which prematurely triggered a critical STOP condition on Wednesday, December 16, 2015. […] Some of Bill’s most impactful component subroutines centered around video games, coaching youth sports, building elaborate displays for Halloween, and spending time with family. […]

Though his hardware has been decommissioned, Bill’s application has been migrated to the Cloud and has been repurposed to run in a virtual machine on an infinite loop. <END OF LINE>

As Fink’s brother explains, “My brother was an amazing guy who ate, slept, and breathed computers, and I could think of no better way to memorialize his passing than to invoke memories of our childhood: Tron, Basic, TRS80, DOS, etc. Thanks to the OP and to all who commented. Bill didn’t want a funeral or to be mourned, but to go viral like this seems to be the perfect tribute to him.”

(Via Reddit and Renner Funeral Homes)

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