“She believed in overcooking everything until it chewed like rubber.”

"She left behind a hell of a lot of stuff to her daughter and sons who have no idea what to do with it," reads the obituary for Pat Stocks, who died recently at the age of 94. It only gets better from there.

The obit details that Stocks' worldly possessions include "2 extremely large TV's from the 90s, a large ceramic stork (we think) umbrella/cane stand, a toaster oven (slightly used)" as well as a "2001 Oldsmobile with a spoiler (she loved putting the pedal to the metal), with only 71,000 kilometers and 1,000 tools that we aren't sure what they're used for... "

But before you get the wrong idea, the notice says that "This is not an ad for a pawn shop, but an obituary for a great Woman, Mother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother born on May 12, 1921 in Toronto."

Debbie Frankle

Stocks' son Sandy tells BuzzFeed Canada that his older sister planned to write the obituary, but she was too distraught. So the task fell to him. "I told them, I'm going to write it and it's not going to be an ordinary obit," he said. He delivered.

One section of the obit detailed his mother's "lack of patience, not holding back her opinion and a knack for telling it like it is She always told you the truth even if it wasn't what you wanted to hear. It was the school of hard knocks and yes we were told many times how she had to walk for miles in a blizzard to get to school, so suck it up."

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It also focused on her cooking. "She believed in overcooking everything until it chewed like rubber so you would never get sick because all germs would be nuked ... If anyone would like a copy of her homemade gravy, we would suggest you don't."

"The gravy was like paste and the turkey was hard and there was no juice in it," Stocks says.

But she cooked that way because of love, according to him. His father got used to overcooked, flavourless food while serving in the Second World War. So his mother cooked to his taste.

"They had the best marriage, they were madly in love and just an incredible couple, and they did everything for each other and for her kids."

Debbie Frankle

Pat also loved a good swear, according to the obit. "She liked four letter words as much as she loved her rock garden and trust us she LOVED to weed that garden with us as her helpers, when child labour was legal or so we were told."

Stocks recalls that each summer he and his three siblings each needed to put in an hour of weeding at the rock garden before they were allowed to play outside at the cottage.

Debbie Frankle

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