--- title: Spiderman obituary for Aaron Purmort description: A man's obituary, which he helped to write, reveals that he was Spiderman. canonical: https://time.com/3611744/spiderman-obituary/ author: Eliza Berman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-12-01T16:23:36.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:56:23.363Z og:title: Man Posthumously Reveals He Was Spiderman in Obituary He Helped Write og:description: Aaron Purmort showed great humor even in his dying days og:url: https://time.com/3611744/spiderman-obituary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Man Posthumously Reveals He Was Spiderman in Obituary He Helped Write twitter:description: Aaron Purmort showed great humor even in his dying days twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Man Posthumously Reveals He Was Spiderman in Obituary He Helped Write  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 1, 2014 4:23 PM UTC  by [Eliza Berman](https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/)  ## Eliza Berman Berman is a senior editor at TIME. Dec 1, 2014 4:23 PM UTC Aaron Purmort was an art director, “pop culture encyclopedia,” husband and father. But his [obituary](http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/51565/?fullname=aaron-joseph-purmort), published in the _Minneapolis Star-Tribune_ after his death from a brain tumor on Nov. 25, revealed him to be something else: Spiderman. The obituary, which he co-wrote with his wife, said that he died “after complications from a radioactive spider bite that led to years of crime-fighting and a years long battle with a nefarious criminal named Cancer.” The remembrance goes on to recall (facetiously) his first wife Gwen Stefani and to assure readers that his son “will grow up to avenge his father’s untimely death.” Purmort’s wife Nora wrote on her blog, “[My Husband’s Tumor](http://myhusbandstumor.com/),” that she had “never laughed and cried more in one sitting” than when the two of them wrote the obituary together. She has been documenting their story — “not a cancer story” but a love story “with some cancer” — on the blog since 2012, the year after they got married and Aaron was first diagnosed, and the year before they had their son. The Purmorts’ story will soon become a documentary, the title of which, _a&n_, serves as a reminder that it is a love story at its core. As Nora wrote in the [blog post](http://myhusbandstumor.com/post/103616881743/its-over-it-wasnt-a-war-or-a-fight-those) in which she announced Aaron’s death: “I know what Aaron always knew: it might not be true right this second, but it’s going to be okay.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3611744/spiderman-obituary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3611744/spiderman-obituary/"},"headline":"Man Posthumously Reveals He Was Spiderman in Obituary He Helped Write","datePublished":"2014-12-01T16:23:36.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:56:23.363Z","description":"Aaron Purmort showed great humor even in his dying days","url":"https://time.com/3611744/spiderman-obituary/","keywords":["Living","Documentary","Cancer","obituary","obituaries"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Eliza Berman","jobTitle":"Berman is a senior editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/eliza-berman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3611744/spiderman-obituary/","name":"Man Posthumously Reveals He Was Spiderman in Obituary He Helped Write"}}]}] ```