LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WXIN) It isn’t every day someone gets to write their own obituary, let alone one filled with wit and humor.
But Gary Wolfelt knew he would one day meet his maker. He had had too many close calls not to see the writing on the wall.
When at last the time came and Wolfelt found the Grim Reaper calling his number, he was ready.
“I am completely dead now,” Wolfelt wrote in his obituary. “I am surprised that it took this long to happen.”
Wolfelt died in a small plane crash in Ohio on May 5. The 72-year-old from Lafayette was the only person in the single-engine Express 2000 FT plane. Wolfelt built the plane himself, according to his wife, Esther, part of a 17-year endeavor.
But it’s not just Wolfelt’s death that has people talking. It’s also his life, and the way Wolfelt was given the rare opportunity to announce not only his own death, but also give a summary of his long, fruitful life. A life Wolfelt felt could’ve ended a half dozen times over.
“I had several close calls throughout my lifetime. I guess that I was just lucky that something didn’t get me long before now,” Gary wrote in his obit.
He described a “long series of events and mishaps” that he believed “should have killed me long ago.”
Those close calls included a fly ball to the head in Little League (his team going a miserable 0-20), a horse kick that nearly left him singing soprano, a brick chimney that almost crushed him flat and a long fall down down a set of stairs with a safe racing down behind him.
“Thank goodness for pain killing drugs!” Gary wrote.
Gary lovingly and jokingly reflected on his family, pondering if his sister had anything to do with that horse-kicking incident. He apologized to his sixth-grade classmates and reflected on failing math class, which he attributed to the aforementioned fly ball to the head.
Never having kids of his own, Gary mused on his love of dogs over people.
“Generally a dog will only bite you when you have it coming. This is not the case with many people,” he wrote.
Among his proudest accomplishments, Gary listed staying lovingly married to his wife for more than 40 years.
“Goodbye and Peace. I am hanging up now,” Gary wrote, signing off for the final time.
Though not without a suggestion about how to best celebrate his life.
“In accordance with my wishes, there will be no funeral. I don’t want people coming by to look at me all dressed up and stretched out in an expensive box looking as bad as I will probably look in a completely dead condition…. Maybe after a while some of my friends might get together and have a party on my behalf. I will try to remember to have a nice full size stand up cardboard cutout of me available for the event. I am pretty sure someone will want to claim it for a dart board afterwords.”
Read Gary’s full obituary here.
Esther added that her husband had been the owner and president of Wolfelt Electronic Security for nearly three decades and had attended Purdue for aviation technology. Gary also built and flew a helicopter before building his fixed-wing plane.
