Found via Boing Boing is this interesting little epitaph (see left). It reads in full:
To Our Mother
Mona Herold Vanni
October 14, 1912 to April 11, 1996
You spent your life expressing animosity for nearly every person you
encountered, including your children. Within hours of his death, you
even managed to declare your husband of fifty-seven years unsuited to
being either a spouse or a father. Hopefully, you are now insulated
from all the dissatisfaction you found in human relationships.
Buddy, Jackie and Mike
I think I’m gonna write my own epitaph, thanks very much.
Befuddled 
http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi?lastname=vanni&firstname=mona&nt=exact
It would appear to have been an actual person, though I find it troubling her SSN is on the web, even after her death.
Wow. Talk about a tough way to bury your mom. The animosity. Eep.
Esbee,
I agree that it’s disturbing to see an SSN on the web, even a dead person’s. The odds are pretty high that there’s another Mona Herold Vanni running around out there, and this one racking up huge credit card bills.
Joe,
Now that I have a teenage daughter I’ve heard “I hate you” more times than I’d like, but I hope that when I’m dead and buried her (and her brothers’) thoughts of me are a little more positive.
I am the Jackie on Mona Herald Vanni’s tombstone. I had no knowledge of her death until my brother contacted me. I had not any contact with her since I was 18. I left home at 16 with the help of my high school principal. My sister eloped six months before to get out of Mother’s control. My brother left immediately after his graduation 7 years later. We’ve all become upstanding citizens. The sentiments on her grave barely covers the brutal treatment we each received. I got the worst as I looked and acted like my father who I never saw as a little child. He was killed in WW!!. I had no input in the epitaph, but Michael expressed it right on. I, on the other hand, would have just put on her name, her birth, and her death in the smallest letters possible. We all loved our father, but were never were allow to get close to him. Michael had the right to express his feelings, especially for his father. The real story is far worse than the epitaph.
Jacqueline, I’m sorry to hear that. Having a wonderful mother, I can’t imagine your experience. I hope that you have been able to have a wonderful life despite your mother’s treatment of you. Thanks so much for your comment.
2006. Amazing. I too was blessed with a wonderful mother Jon. She died exactly two years ago tonight at 7:27PM. Thanks to my phone alarm, which I set earlier today, I raised a beer to heaven at that exact time even though she would not have been pleased with my choice of beverage.
Thanks Jon! I think we’ve all had rather wonderful lives. My personal nightmare will alway be with me, but it doesn’t affect my present life anymore. She beat us, kicked us, starved us, me for five days. I ran away many times just for a little peace. I wanted to jump a freight car just to get as far away as possible. I was a young child with a police record. When I woke up in my new home at 16, as a mother’s helper, I thought I was in heaven. My sister and I have always stayed close. I entered UCLA after I graduated and then the Air Force. My husband is a retired Air Force Surgeon and my children are very close to me. I loved my stepfather, as did my sister, but she never let us get close to him. It was a really strange family life. Thank you for your kind thoughts. Jackie
Jacqueline, my grandfather, Reao Charles was Mona’s brother. I can remember my mother telling me stories of how cruel he was to her and her brother. Even though he left home as a teenager and they never saw each other again, something horrible must have happened to them when they were young to become such cruel individuals.
Jackie,
I am so sorry for the way you grew up. I have to say the epitaph hit home for me as I also have an egg donor who treated me very poorly….treated my father very poorly and has even expressed how she was jealous of the relationship I had with my father. He passed away when I was 12yrs old. The last thing she said to him before he went into surgery was “im tired of taking care of sick people” less than 48 hr after his funeral we were shipped off to summer camp and when we came back literally were not allowed to show my grief. Since then she has bad mouthed him to no end. He would have taken on the world for her….actually did when he fought in Vietnam for her freedom. Nothing was ever good enough for her. I was never good enough for her. I was told I was worthless and “just like him” in such negativity. To this day she cant stand me….but the feelings are mutual. I have tried to have a relationship with that her but it was DONE when she got mad at me on Thanksgiving one year which happened to land on my Sons bday that year….and she stood up from her chair screaming profanities at me and telling me to get out and then threw her chair and it almost hit my son. NEVER again will I put my kids in the environment I grew up in.
I tell you all of this in hopes that you know that you are not alone in this world. I am glad we ALL have gotten out of that safely (at least together enough to tell our stories).
Bless you
I am so sorry that you more than likely endured the unimaginable. I share your sentiments and often wonder what I would say at my parents funeral. I hope you have found peace someone as I am searching for some kind of peace myself. I hope you all know how much you are valued and it seems you do. You are out of it, the past is in the past.