Funerals: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

In My Humble Opinion
21

My husband’s grandmother’s funeral was just ridiculous. First, the minister obviously knew nothing about her, even though she’d volunteered at that church for years.

Second, he talked about how the true measure of a mother’s success is how many of her children came back to the nest. Really? The fact that 3 of her 5 adult children came home to live unemployed and mooch off of their elderly mother is a success? I’d say that’s a parenting fail.

Third, he spoke at length about the daughter who partially repaid her mooching by caring for her elderly mother… until it meant more than errand-running, that is. Then it was off to the nursing home! The other adult children were mentioned only as an afterthought. My comment to my husband was, “St. Becky, Queen of the Funeral”.

22

The Rabbi who spoke at my grandfather’s funeral obviously did not know my grandfather at all. Not a surprise, Grandpa’s mind had been gone for some years, and his second wife was not helpful in the memory department. Still, to say of someone that “He was part of a pioneering generation” was such a generic piece of space-filling nonsense that is pissed me off royally at the time. Still, I put up with it stoically.

Then, while I was up at the front of the funeral home sitting with the family during the largely content-free eulogy, I heard someone in the back talking. Kinda loudly, just saying the same thing over and over again. I could barely make it out. Now I was getting mad! I turned to see who was interrupting a funeral with some blathering. All the way in the back, in her wheelchair, was a family friend who was herself in her late 90s. Her mind had been going rapidly in the previous year. My anger drained away completely. This poor woman did not know where she was or what she was saying. What she was saying was “I don’t know if I’m dead or alive.” Beyond tragic.

I stopped by to see her as people left the funeral home. I don’t know what I said to her - some kind wishes I’m sure - but I remember looking into her eyes. She been very bright, always had trenchant things to say on current events, but that woman was gone. The light was out of her eyes. Her body held on for a few more years, but from that point forward she was, to me, passed.

OK, the good. When my Grandmother passed away (not the wife of the Grandfather above), us “kids” were all gathered at a local hotel. Our generation was all in our late 30s/early 40s at at point. My sister, some of her friends, my brother and sister-in-law and his kids, me with Mama Zappa and our kids. We’re all eating take out for an impromptu dinner in the breakfast area of the hotel (the only place with enough tables for all of us). A dinner progressed one of my sister’s friends said “What are you people - the burping farting family?” My sister, my brother his wife, and my wife and I all stared right at her and said “Yes” in a tone that also said “How could you know us and NOT know this?!” I don’t think Grandma would have approved, but it was funny.

23

At my mom’s memorial service, my born-again Christian uncle got up and gave a pretty nice speech, but closed it by saying that when he spoke with her on the day before her death, she accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.

I know for a fact she was unconscious when he spoke with her.

The other uncomfortable thing about that was, the attendees of the funeral were by and large a very liberal crowd, since this service was being held in the Unitarian church where my mother had been a member for 10 years. It wasn’t a particularly religious church either (the last pastor was an atheist) but more of community devoted to social justice. Even if my mother had been conscious and lucid when my uncle spoke with her, it would have been entirely out of character for her to adopt this fundamentalist Christian paradigm of conversion.

I think my uncle said that untruth to comfort himself, since he so strongly believes in that version of salvation, but I though it was in bad taste for him to say that to this congregation. I hope that they understood that what he said wasn’t true and that my mother did not in fact go through a personality change in her last moments and become born-again Christian.

24

I know I’ve told this story before, but:

My aunt’s funeral. One of her daughters was reading from Psalms and said, “I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your cook and your staff will comfort me.”

My mother and I lost it.

My aunt would have been right there with us.

25

My paternal grandfather was not a religious man, but he was a career military man. He had the full military funeral, and then a random, fiery Baptist preacher came and spoke on the evils on communism and how my grandfather had helped its eradication. In 2006.

In high school, I had a school mate that committed suicide. She had a terrible abusive home life, but the preacher spent the entire time blaming her friends for corrupting her and pushing her toward death. She ran with a pretty mild crowd, and most of them got up in disgust and left.

26

My brother was an avowed atheist. His memorial service (arranged by my bible thumping mother and her husband) was aaaaaaaaaaaaaall about god and Jesus and salvation and blah blah blah. Pissed me off then and still pisses me off to this day. Somethint like 95% of the people there never even met him, and everyone who go up to talk basically said “be happy; he’s with Jesus now!”

MY tribute was to talk about his love of humor, comedy, and movies, and play Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” There were some audible gasps in the crowd after the line “life’s a piece of shit/when you look at it.” I was the last speaker of the program, and everyone who KNEW him came up and said that I really hit the nail on the head.

27

Do what the deceased have requested. They have thought about you (or they should have), so you should end up not second-guessing yourself for funeral, memorial, wake, etc. If the recently passed relative has been a monster, ignore all those requests, cremate, have the urn stored in a cemetary, military barracks, or leave it up to the crematory. At any rate, I would not store ashes in my house.

28

Ahh, Grasshoppah! Never trust someone else to set the agenda if it could piss you off. And if you have no say, hold a “friends” memorial and tribute and skip the sideshow.

29

My uncle Bill died of cancer, he kept losing internal organs at an alarming rate so he was essentially an empty shell by December [but he did live for that final Christmas …] and he had a closed casket funeral but we all knew that he was buried in an old pair of chinos and a plaid shirt, as was his wish. He also didn’t have any sort of religious ceremony, just the family and friends together having the wake [he was a pretty laid back person.] Of course this peeved off a few of the more elderly and religious members of the [second]wife’s family. Then to top it off, the hearse went to the wrong cemetery but most of us went to the correct cemetery from the hall the wake was at when it was time to meet up at the graveside for the dropping of the corpse [as Uncle Bill referred to it:D] We finally all managed to get everything to the same location and proceed.

My dad had a great time, Closed casket and the director of the funeral home set things up so we all had plenty of room for the people that showed up. The reverend who MCd the event wasn’t overly preachy, had almost all the petty details right in the obsequie, and pretty much let things develop as people stood to tell stories about my Dad. mrAru and I arranged for all the food for the wake after the obsequies and around 120 or so people showed up [not bad for a middle of the week day deal in a very small town!] and we grabbed a bite and did the recieving line thing then split for the actual funeral in a nearby town where the family plot is. We had an honor guard shooting guns, and a piper playing a couple of dads favorites, and a bugler playing taps. Very nice, only family were there and I got to meet a couple of his now ancient cousins that I hadn’t seen in years. At least Mom wasn’t so far gone with her alzheimers that she didn’t understand what was happening.

30

The potentially ugly: When my late brother passed, it was sudden. His wife, with whom I am very close, was too devastated to have much to do with his arrangements, so, as the sib who was closest, both emotionally and geographically, the job fell to me.

His son from his first marriage lived about 900 miles away and had transportation issues. His mother, Bro’s first wife offered to drive him up for the service. In many families, that would have been a good solution. Unfortunately, ex-SIL is a total nutjob (she once staged a kidnapping of herself and my niece to get some money out of her own parents :eek:). Bro’s widow, by that time was ready to kill her on site. I had the unenviable task of telling the nutjob that, while I was sure that she would be of great comfort to both of her children, she wasn’t welcome at the service herself.

The day of the memorial service, we got word from my niece that her mom was going to show up anyway. The solution settled upon was to assign two family friends (one a big, burly biker and the other the big, burly bartender from the bar that Bro owned, both of whom were good at dealing with crazy people). The biker friend was the one who intercepted her. He took her out to the porch of the funeral home and talked quietly with her during the service.

When the memorial was over, she had gone back to my niece’s house without having upset the rest of the mourners. In the end, she was a bit of a comfort to my niece and nephew in her own crazy way, but she would have been very upsetting to Bro’s widow and his two kids with her.

31

My friend’s stepfather died, and even though her mother wasn’t married to him anymore she, had remained close to him and was grateful for all the things he had done for her. They were also still close to his children. So she and her mother expected me to come to the funeral.
When I heard where the funeral was going to be held I am thinking no way in Hades am I going. This was about 20 years ago, and I don’t know what it’s like there now, but back then if you were white you didn’t go anywhere near that area. My friend and her mother assured me I would be okay because the church had its own parking lot and it was during the day. So I went.

It was … different.

The service starts and after the organist/singer stops playing the minister asks everyone to give a hand to the organist/singer for his fine playing and singing. So everybody claps and the organist/singer stands up and takes a bow. Then the minister had the organist/singer’s mother stand up and take a bow for raising such a fine young Christian son who plays and sings so well. More applause for his mom.
Then he had the women of the church who had brought the flowers stand up and take a bow too because they needed to be thanked, more applause.

Every time the organist played during the service everyone would be up and swaying and singing and clapping and dancing in the aisles.
I’m thinking okaaaaay Everybody group has their own was of celebrating, mourning, etc. I’d never seen anything like this before, but even the Bible tells you to celebrate when someone dies.
Every time he finished playing the minister would have him stand up and take a bow for his fine playing and singing, and then his mother would stand up and take a bow for raising such a fine young Christian son who played and sang so well.
More applause.

Midway through the service the minister asks if anyone would like to be saved. He’s asking them to come forward and receive Jesus, and I’m thinking “WHERE?” The coffin was taking up the entire aisle in front of the altar. Are people supposed to climb over it? Squeeze around it? Ask the people in the front row to move back so they can get through?

After the service was over we were filing out of the church and minister was shaking hands and thanking people for coming. Other than my friend and her mother, there were maybe 6 of us there who were white. Me and a few of her stepfather’s co-workers. The minister refused to shake our hands or acknowledge us in any way.
I couldn’t help it, sometimes my mouth opens up on its own and I said, “I guess our white faces don’t show up so well in this bright sunlight”.
I know it was rude but it came out before I could stop it.

Later, I apologized to my friend and her mother.
My friend, her mother and his children were livid. Not at me, at the minister.
They were offended by the the singing, the dancing, applause for the organist like it was some kind of stage show instead of a funeral.
They didn’t appreciate the minister trying to save people during the service either.

But they were really livid about the minister being disrespectful towards the white people who came. His children were embarrassed and afraid people would think it was a reflection of their feelings.

I felt sorry for them. They had enough dealing with their father’s death, they sure didn’t need the service turned into a side show by a racist minister.

32

At my husband’s grandmother’s funeral, the pastor was about 90 years old and had a lisp. He sounded like something right out of The Princess Bride. The assembled cousins were all wavering in an odd place between grief and hilarity anyway, and then the pastor opens with, “Fwiends, wet us pway.” You could hear an assortment of stifled noises, and watch shoulders shake behind bowed heads all over the chapel. Most people managed to pass it off as excessive grief.

33

At my great-aunts funeral a few months ago, I found myself taking one for the team and being the family member designated to talk to the one very weird cousin. She’s nice enough in her way, just clueless about social interaction and very odd.

Moments before the service started, I suggested we walk outside the funeral home for a bit of fresh air. She agrees, and grabs another woman on our way out, introducing the stranger as her neighbor and best friend in the whole world.

So I’m making polite generic conversation, like ya do, and said something about the unusually warm spring we’d been having. The neighbor lady answers “It’s because the spaceships keep poking holes in our ozone. It tilts the earth all off-kilter and messes up the seasons.” And cousin is bobbing her head in fervent agreement to this craziness.

I have no idea how I managed to mouth some banalities back at them and get them shepherded inside for the service, but I was absolutely dying.

34

a gentleman i knew had a quite a bit of home acreage, one night a favourite tree of his was struck by lightening. he took part of the tree, hollowed it out, added hinges and gave it to a funeral director to hold for him to be buried in.

when he and his wife retired from their mom and pop store, he donated his time as a ground keeper at the church. one day he was mowing the lawn, he had lunch, and as was his habit took a siesta under a tree.

a knock on the church door a bit later, a man was concerned that we had a body on the lawn. turns out that he did pass on during his nap.

at the funeral he arrived in his tree, wearing pajamas, robe, and slippers. it seems he also gave those items to the director to hold.

during the orthodox funeral service “falling and fallen asleep” are mentioned quite often. i liked the way he took it very literally. first “falling asleep” under a tree in the church yard; then wearing bedclothes in his tree.

guaranteed no one at the funeral wore the same outfit as his!

35

My uncle lived in a small town, and ran the town’s only movie theater. Naturally, all of the children in town loved him.

At his funeral, the coffin had the obligatory bouquet of flowers on it. Below that bouquet, someone–we have no idea who–placed a dozen roses, their stems in a popcorn bag.

Everyone agreed that it was a much better floral tribute than the pompous bouquet.

36

My grandma died when I was in my first year of college and my sister was a high school senior. My sister played flute, and my grandma’s sister (Aunt Linda) wanted to sing at the funeral. So they got together a couple times to practice Amazing Grace together, with the intent of performing it during the memorial service. It sounded pretty good when they rehearsed it, but my sister had rehearsed with her *alto *flute. She brought her *regular *flute to the funeral, and played the same notes from her sheet music. And since there’s a key transposition between those instruments, the vocal part was unsingably high during the service (Aunt Linda’s a contralto!). It was *terrible, *but she stuck it out and kept singing for the whole song.

It turned out okay in the end, though. Aunt Linda could have gotten really cheesed off and accused my sister of ruining the funeral, but since she’s laid-back and really religious and my grandma was a demi-professional singer (in a local band in the 70s and 80s) she joked how my grandma’s ghost did it on purpose to upstage her from the grave. So it was pretty funny, and definitely memorable.

That was probably the most bizarrely fun funeral I’ve ever attended, because grandma wasn’t a very nice person. Her husband had died a couple years before her, and she turned even more bitter and nasty without him. So it’s fair to say there was more relief than grief at her passing (lots of talk from the religious family members about how she would be much happier with him in heaven than she was without him on earth). I wouldn’t say the atmosphere was exactly jovial, but it was pretty freakin’ upbeat for a funeral.

Same here! My grandma wanted us to play Joe Diffie (country music) at her funeral, and it’s hard to be somber to Good Brown Gravy and Pickup Man! :stuck_out_tongue:

37

I grew up in, and most of my family still belongs to, the Church of God in Christ. Funerals in that church tend to be very, ah, oriented to to giving praise to church hierarchy. At every COGIC funeral I’ve ever attended, there has been a processional in and out for however many COGIC ministers are in attendance, and almost everyone speaking opens by saying “Let me begin by giving honor to Bishop A, Superintendent c, and Elders C, D, and E.” I’ve gotten grief for declining to do so.

At my mother’s funeral, the minister giving the eulogy (it’s always a minister) gave a sermon on why same-sex marriage was evil. There was an initiative on the ballot to ban it in Tennessee, you see, and he didn’t want to miss an opportunity to campaign against it.

At my favorite uncle’s funeral, the COGIC bishop giving the eulogy paused to inveigh against the evils of fairies. This was when my uncle’s eldest son, openly gay, was dying of AIDS and too weak to be a pallbearer, and his long-time partner, who had stayed with him despite being HIV-negative, had been bullied into not sitting by his dying lover.

For the good: my favorite college professor’s funeral was, oddly, a joy to attend. Her death was not a surprise and she had planned it out perfectly. Every speaker told an amusing story about her, and it was a wonderful opportunity to meet up again with old friends.We laughed as much as we cried that day.

38

TruCelt for the win. Not that anyone’s competing, but dayummm.

My first husband’s uncle was an awful man. He was a drunk, molested his daughter, beat his wife, and shot himself in the arm so he could collect disability. I couldn’t imagine what the pastor could come up with to make anyone sad the guy was dead, but he didn’t even try. He gave a brief sermon on judgment and forgiveness. It was very effective. If that church hadn’t been so far from home, I would have considered joining.

39

In the past ten years or so I’ve been to two funerals, unfortunately both were for infants.

The first, for a work colleague (daughter died at 6 weeks from cancer – first child too), was a simple, comforting affair. It was held at an Anglican church and the minister was only about concern for the parents and family, how they could cope with their grief and come to terms with the loss.

The second was for a neighbour (5 month old boy – sick kid from birth, the mother smoked & drank all the way through her pregnancy). That service was held at the family’s catholic church. The priest was very much concerned that the family not blame god for the kid dying, not question their faith and make sure they kept coming to church (because that collection plate won’t fill itself). Made me glad to be an ex-catholic.

40

The Ugly

A good friend died of cancer a few years back. She was a brilliant, caring and active woman. Chairperson of Mensa for a while, stage director, writer, all round fantastic lady.

Her alcoholic husband abused the guests (being ‘funny’), told us to bugger off after the service as there was no food on offer. Some of his neighbours laid out sandwhiches at the house. He spent most of the eulogy talking about himself - not his family and certainly not his wife.

He cackled that his favourite attendee for the service was the woman who was awaiting trial for the mercy killing of her mother (another cancer patient). He thought that was funny too, how offended and shocked we must all be. Ha ha. His children and grandchildren just shrugged it all off as his usual perverseness and only one of them attended his funeral a couple of years later. I sure as hell didn’t go.

There was a obituary online that I stumbled across (while researching my friend) and they couldn’t bring themselves to say anything more positive than; “He was an eccentric.” Then went on to say how wonderful his wife had been. Karma.
The Good

My aunt Peg. Brilliant lady. Huge turnout of family and friends. Great speeches, lots of laughs.
How she went into the assisted living and kept getting hit on by the old romeos, which she thoroughly enjoyed, having been married young and missing out on all that flirting. Her constant plans of ‘going over the fence’ because she’d rather be at home, dicky heart, dodgy hips and all.

She was an incredibly sweet woman, with a wicked wit. Even during the service, her kids were saying that they hadn’t laughed so much at any other funeral - mum would have been so proud.

Her whole family had been taking it in turns to visit and care for her, and they said they used to argue about who ‘got to’ go, not who ‘had to’. They said how her death came at the point where she’d just had enough and not a moment sooner.

The Bad

Not a close friend’s brother. A few of us went for moral support. The man who kept hugging her during the service was the bloke who had molested her as a kid. Her dad’s best friend. Whenever she tried to pull away her dad would tell her to stop attention seeking. He knew the history but had chosen his friendship over her safety.

Weirdly, her brother had discussed funerals with his mother the week before (not knowing her would plough his motorcycle into a couple of parked cars) - as per his wishes they kept playing “Don’t worry, be happy”. Never felt the same about that song.