Jill's Journal: As rumor would have it ...

“The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

Decades ago, Mark Twain made those words famous.

And they came into play in modern-day life last week, when as rumor would have it, word was spreading like wildfire that a friend of mine had passed away.

The rumor started with a group of church ladies, as one of the ladies thought she had heard that.

Their conversation was overheard by a funeral director, but he hadn’t seen the name on the death list, so he made an inquiry with another funeral director, who in turn alerted the man’s wife to the talk that was going around.

She immediately called her husband, just to make sure the chatter was all a rumor. Much to her relief, he answered the phone.

That whole scenario made for some good fodder with a group of friends later that day. Of course, we laughed as one funny comment surfaced after another. And we were all too happy to be laughing at the misunderstanding rather than sympathizing with one another.

Who remembers the game of “Telephone” we played as kids. As it goes, one person starts with a sentence and then it’s passed on from one person to another, with the final person revealing the end sentence. Most times, it’s nothing like the original line. That’s because we all love to embellish a story to make it more exciting, more enticing and one that we want to tell more people.

Who among us hasn’t shared a comment or two about something or someone we may have only caught a snippet of. Unless we have the entire story or witnessed what took place or who said it, it’s likely not going to be the same story that surfaces as it is told by one person after another.

Television and big screen star Blake Lively once said, “I’ve never been a big fan of gossip. Being a victim of it, I knew how much it hurt.”

That’s somewhat ironic since her early claim to fame was on a television show by the name of “Gossip Girl.”

Over the weekend, I happened to watch a John Wayne movie, “Big Jake.” That, too, was somewhat ironic, as during different times of the film, many told him that they thought he was long gone six feet under.

But despite rumor, Big Jake was still riding high, just like my friend.