This is just a guess, but I think one of the most read sections of any newspaper is the obituary pages. It's probably the major way people find out about the passing of a friend or neighbor, and discover the details of the funeral plans involved.
There are some people in a community that, because of their public persona or notable way of life, have the notice of their passing put in the paper as a "featured" obit, but, it is safe to say the passing of most of us will be duly noted with a small description of our life and times coupled with the funeral arrangements on the obituary pages.
That practice does hide somewhat the uniqueness of a life.
We all share one thing in common. Even though our passing may look similar to the others who share the page with us, we are all exclusive in the way we lived and died, and each obituary has a story to tell.
Take Alphonse "Funzey" Cusano, for example. Funzey died Tuesday, March 11, at the age of 53.
His was an uneventful life, outside of those who knew him well, and like many others, his long and painful road to his inevitable end was marked by peaks and valleys along the way.
His unique journey toward his demise left him sick for some time with respiratory problems, and it wasn't until he arrived at his third hospital that he found out what was at the heart of his health issues. A serious and relatively unknown lung disease was the culprit, a disease whose symptoms mirrored those of similar illnesses.
He mounted another peak in his battle to live when the treatment diagnosed by the specialist who agreed to take his case caused a number of dramatic and positive changes in his condition.
But he still had one final valley to get out of, and it was one he couldn't climb.
Funzey was being airlifted to a Pittsburgh hospital for the lung transplant doctors felt he desperately needed, when, about a half-hour away from the airport, he went into respiratory failure and died.
Here is where Funzey's story stopped being unique, and blended in with the same ones shared by the relatives and close friends of every obituary page listing.
His family was devastated, and began seeking answers to seemingly unanswerable questions, like the "why's," "what's" and "who's" events like this give rise to.
And, ironically and inexplicably, with every three or four moments of agony, one calming one would appear.
Like the overwhelming attendance at Funzey's wake, or the outpouring of caring, concern and respect for the deceased showered on the family in the weeks after Funzey's passing.
Those rare but uplifting happenings have led Funzey's brother, Joseph Cusano, and his wife, Monica, searching for ways to thank the countless people who have done their level best to soothe their grief and keep his brother's life alive in their memories.
Alphonse "Funzey" Cusano was both "one man" and "everyman." His story, while different in detail, is parallel to the lives we all lead, with its peaks and valleys and unanswerable questions.
And the most affirmative event at the end of all these separate but similar instances is the positive responses that almost everyone left behind gets, signifying that the person in question was special after all.