The obituaries that appear in the Winston-Salem Journal are a tad dry, and they tend to involve people walking with Jesus or entering God’s embrace.  They’re usually quite nice and heartfelt, but they really aren’t the kind of thing I envision for myself when the time comes.  Me, I want mine to read something like this one in the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming) newspaper.  An excerpt for you:

Jim, who had tired of reading obituaries noting other’s courageous
battles with this or that disease, wanted it known that he lost his
battle. It was primarily as a result of being stubborn and not
following doctor’s orders or maybe for just living life a little too
hard for better than five decades…

He
was sadly deprived of his final wish, which was to be run over by a
beer truck on the way to the liquor store to buy booze for a date. True
to his personal style, he spent his final hours joking with medical
personnel, cussing and begging for narcotics and bargaining with God to
look over his loving dog, Biscuit, and his family.

He would like to thank all "his ladies" for putting up with him the last 30 years.

You’d have to change that last line from the plural "all his ladies" to the singular "his lady", but other than that I think it reads well.  Celeste really could be classified as "long suffering wife " but she’s a trooper and I think she’d appreciate the acknowledgment one way or another.