Sudbury woman's scathing obit about dad who was 'total darkness' becomes a TikTok hit
CBC
For Amanda Denis, saying goodbye to her father meant telling some uncomfortable truths about the man.
Now, a scathing obituary the real estate professional in Sudbury, Ont., wrote as an honest depiction of her complicated family relationship has become a TikTok hit.
Denis said she wasn't anticipating the reaction on the social media platform after she she wrote the first line: "I am pleased to announce the passing of Harold Stefan Kandulski at the age of 74."
The obit describes Kandulski, who lived in Penticton, B.C., in his final days, as an absentee father who was narcissistic and abusive.
He died after suffering multiple strokes, the obituary said, with one leaving him "thankfully unable to speak."
In an interview with CBC News, Denis said the piece wasn't to settle any scores, but rather to show others that people — even close family members — can be multi-layered.
"The man was just total darkness," she said. "But the truth needs to come out regardless of what it looks like.
"Sometimes it doesn't look very nice to some people and I wasn't writing it for them," Denis added. "I was writing it for the people who could relate and who could understand where I was coming from."
Denis has written other obits about family — nine years ago for her mother and in December 2022 for her brother — but they had a gentler tone.
Denis said she couldn't write a similar, more positive one for her father.
"It's not truthful," she said. "It's not who that person was. It's not their life."
Originally, Denis wanted to post the obituary on a local funeral home's web page, but the business refused to allow it after reading it, she said.
"They didn't want to deal with the backlash and they didn't want to field those phone calls."
Denis was directed to another site — castanet.ca — that's used to post obits, and Kandulski's one about her dad was up briefly but then removed. Fortunately, Denis said, she grabbed a screen shot before it was deleted.
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