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Winking emoji in obituary waves a goofy farewell to a Spanish grandma

The late Carmen Bustamante Barangó was a "character" who didn't want a religious symbol running with her death notice.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Cooper

Did your grandma warn you not to stick out your tongue? Then your grandma wasn't Carmen Bustamante Barangó, who loved the winking, tongue-sticking-out emoji so much she demanded it run in her obituary.

After she died on Friday in Barcelona at age 75, the Spanish woman's family obeyed her wishes and ran the emoji in the death notice as it appeared in Saturday's El Periodico de Catalunya.

Her son Roman Zabal told El Pais newspaper that his mother used WhatsApp to communicate with her family, and the emoji used in her obituary was her favorite.

Zabal told El Pais that his mother wasn't religious and warned her children that if a religious symbol was used with her death notice she would come back to life and come after them. If anyone embodied the spirit of this particular emoji, it would seem to be her.

(Via Toronto Sun)