At first I imagined this to be satire, but on further reading I realized that there are quite a number of folks in the world who ignored Saddam's petty quirks such as gassing his own people and throwing friends and relatives into a meat-grinder, and looked at him as a family man, a doting father and loving husband.

It came to me that since I have already written two nasty pieces about his demise [here and here], it would behoove me to scribble a decent sendoff for the poor fellow. So, to be fair, here is my

Saddam Husayn at-Takriti was born on April 28, 1937, in the village of Al-Awja, near the town of Tikrit. Saddam never knew his father, Husayn al-Majid, though it is unknown whether he died or abandoned his family. Saddam initially was raised by his mother, Subha, and stepfather, Ibrahim Hasan, who naturally disliked Saddam and abused him. Saddam never had a formal education, instead spending his youth tending sheep and stealing for his stepfather, the usual occupation of Muslim youth.

Except for torture, murder, rape, genocide, war, pillaging, looting, and meat-grinding, the next 60 years were spent with his loving family which was rather large by Western standards, but quite normal for Muslims. Everyone knows that his two sons, Uday and Qusay predeceased him a few years earlier, however, less known is the fact that his two brothers also died a few years ago: Mayday, who went down in flames over the no-fly zone, and Timedelay, an explosives expert who blew his fuse prematurely.

The much lamented dictator is survived by 15 sons:
Sooflay, a restaurateur
Guday, who lives in Australia
Huray, a sports fanatic
Sashay, who is gay
Kuntay and Kintay, twins living in Africa
Sayhay, a baseball player
Ojay, a stalker and murderer
Gulay, a singer and entertainer
Ebay, an Internet entrepreneur
Biliray, a country music star
Ecksray, a radiologist
Puray, a manufacturer of kitchen blenders
Regay, Jamaican step-son
Tupay, who is bald

6 daughters:
Lattay, a coffee-shop owner
Dushay, owner of a feminine-care-products company
Phayray, an actress
Safeway, a grocery store owner
Gudlay, a prostitute.
Olay, who lives in Mexico

2 Sisters
Bufay, who weighs 150 kilos
Merengue, the ballroom dancer

A Polish cousin
Wadjusay, who's deaf

4 aunts
Ixnay, who never agrees with anyone
Ayay, who stopped drinking
Heyhey, who married Fat Albert
Amway, who kept saddam's closet filled with cleaning supplies

5 uncles
Nosgay, a flower-arranger
Haiway, a truck driver
Bengay, who always rubbed him the wrong way
Pahtay, the nightclub owner
Marseille, the French uncle

1 cousin who actually never had sex with him:
Noway

Along with
Mandelay, half sister to Howie
Waylay, his Pirate Grandfather

And finally, Oyvey, but the family doesn't like to talk about him.

Most of the names were taken from a circulating email. I added a few of my own. Permission for this Obit was given by Okay, one of the more agreeable members of the Hussein family. Details of Saddam's life were supplied by Saddam's girl Friday who was wayway too kind to me.