A Tampa Bay sports writer wrote his own obituary while dying of cancer in a hospice, with his moving goodbye now sweeping the internet
A Tampa Bay sports writer wrote his own obituary while dying of cancer in a hospice, with his moving goodbye now sweeping the internet.
David Alfonso, 73, who worked for 20 years at the Tampa Tribune, began thinking about writing his own obituary after being hospitalized in July as his body began shutting down following a 25 year battle with lymphomatic leukemia.
Armed with a yellow legal pad and a pen, Alfonso began writing down his life’s story, occasionally taking breaks to watch ESPN and the Tokyo , reported.
‘Alfonso, David Alfred, a fine writer and mostly decent human, moved on August 6, 2021 at his and his wife’s lovely abode on McKay Creek in Largo,’ he wrote just days before dying.
‘The end was a little rough, but, hey, no one gets out alive, nor always on their own terms.Still, he claimed one final assignment for himself, writing his obituary.’
David Alfonso, pictured with his two dogs, wrote his own obituary as he was dying of cancer
Alfonso enjoyed a long writing career, including 20 years of covering sports in the Tampa Tribune.Pictured, a clip from his early writing days at the Clearwater Sun
David Alfonso finished his own obituary days before he passing away
He joked that while he did not always make his deadlines, he was happy to have made this final one.
‘I thought, “That’s my David,” Janice Alfonso, his wife, said after she read it.’He’s so frank. He has wit. It’s David.’
Alfonso died on August 6, 2021, at his home in McKay Creek, in Largo, Florida.
In his obituary, Alfonso immediately paid tribute to his parents, Alfred and 온라인카지노 Grace Alfonso, a janitor and bank teller, respectively.
Alfonso said his parents worked hard to provide for him and helped him attend the University of Florida, where he studied philosophy.
While he joked about the need for such a degree, Alfonso later moved on to become a newspaper writer at the USF Oracle.
He later went on to write for the Clearwater Sun before settling at his hometown paper, the Tampa Tribune, where he fell into the world of sports reporting.
Alfonso, second from the left, covered a myriad of events while he was a sports reporter
At one point, he wrote a story on his own journey in a local triathlon, poking fun at himself
After retiring as a journalist, Alfonso enjoyed a decade of teaching at Plant High School
As he fell in love with covering college football games and the golden era of boxing in the 1980s, he met his future wife, Janice.
The couple married in 1986 and had two children together, Phil and Jenny.
He retired as a writer and began teaching algebra at his alma matter, Plant High School in 1998.
At the end of his life, he looked back fondly at everything but confessed that he still felt unsatisfied with how he died.
‘Now it’s time to say goodbye.A 25-year duel with chronic lymphocytic leukemia has come crashing down with a vengeance, and I do mean a vengeance. Once a two-time finisher at St. Anthony’s Triathlon, I am bed-ridden and don’t care for it a bit, even as the wonderful care of Hospice tries to take the edge off the inevitable,’ Alfonso wrote.
‘While I am invigorated by the act of writing (yes, even this), I know what follows and don’t welcome it.’
His last words are advice left to the living, to enjoy a full breakfast, accompanied with a copy of the local morning newspaper.
‘And remember: Kindness is free.Sprinkle that stuff everywhere.’
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news" data-version="2" id="mol-e0c57480-06ca-11ec-855e-cf7ce04c3664" website reporter writes his own obituary just days before dying