That’s not an uncommon response to an extreme situation - I think it’s called hysterical stress response laughter. I’ve done that on occasion, too - just about had a serious car collision, and found a huge grin on my face, not that I found anything about the situation funny.
Aw, gee, funerals and me don’t get along. Here’s a couple examples for you guys.
First, Uncle Earl’s Funeral:
The funeral was an odd one. My Mom & I sat in the back on the right-hand side on some VERY uncomfortable wood folding chairs. We were farther back than the left hand side because there were bathrooms on the other side, so we could see everyone from where we were. On the left at the back were three pews like in church, then all folding chairs like our side. The back pew had a bunch of little old men sitting on it and when another one came to sit down there the end of the pew just fell off - and the whole pew collapsed and all the little old men slid down to the end on top of each other. It was at that point that I started to giggle and for the rest of the funeral I had a hard time trying not to. Well, the funeral director came over and helped these old guys back up and made sure they were okay, then he put the end back on the pew and whopped it a couple times - and do you believe it?! They sat down on it again. It stayed put, but still…
When it was time for the funeral to start, the place was fairly full, but there were a couple rows of chairs on still empty and one row of chairs in front of my Mom & I empty - plus the row we were in was just us. There was plenty of room for those old men to move to another safer place, but Nooooo, they wanted to sit there. So it served them right that when the family was called out for one last prayer while the casket was shut that when they came back in and we had the usual “Will the congregation rise” thing…then sat back down, well the pew gave out again under them and once more they went bump bump bump down on top of each other. So here we are in full funeral mode and people are hurrying over to help these old guys up and make sure they were okay. And do you believe it again - they sat back down there! That’s when my Mom started giggling and couldn’t stop. Which of course set me off again.
Finally the funeral got underway and some family members got up to talk about Uncle Earl and then Mom & I started sniffling because they’re breaking up and you know, it happens. Well, then the funeral director got up right away after the family was done and started talking…and talking…and talking…and I was soooo bored. He wasn’t a great speaker and very monotone. So here I am squirming around on my uncomfy folding chair with this sniffly snotty kleenex in my hand that I didn’t really want to hold, and my Mom is squirming around on her uncomfy folding chair and looking over at that pew. Probably wanting to see it go again for some entertainment. But I was bored…so I stuck an end of my kleenex in my nose and started making snuffy noises at my Mom until she turned around. Then she let out a laugh and just as quickly covered her mouth and slugged me one. Then she ducked down to recover herself so nobody would see who laughed, and I sat there looking towards the front like innocence itself and I think it might have worked if a man ahead of us hadn’t turned and noticed I still had a kleenex sticking out of my nose. Well, I didn’t want to pull it out in front of him in case something came with it, so I just sat there looking innocent until he turned away, then I took it out.
Finally the funeral started winding down a bit. They had a lady come up to sing and a piano player. It was weird music for a funeral - they did the Tennessee Waltz and some weird opera type thingy. My Mom turned to me during the opera song and she put her hands to her ears and made this scrunchy faced look - she didn’t like the music. Then I leaned over and said in a slightly-louder-than-intended whisper “My butt hurts.” and the people in front of us turned around to look so we both had to look down quick and pretend we were innocent. The funeral director did a final prayer and then invited everyone to go downstairs to eat dinner with the family. So Mom & I are sitting there watching people file out and we were wondering how to get out without being seen. Our original plan was just to leave after the funeral because everyone would drive to the cemetery and we’d go the opposite way - and nobody would be offended. But noooOooo… they’re all going downstairs to eat. Okay. So we sat there trying to make plans to get outside and then one of Mom’s cousins caught her sitting there. He asked us “Did you guys hear that giggling earlier? Did you see who did it - you’ve got a good view from back here of the whole place.” My Mom starts dying at this point and so I said quick “Yeah - just ahead of us a couple rows.” Well, Mom’s cousin was satisfied with that answer and then told us we could sneak on by the line to get downstairs faster since we were family so we said thanks and snuck by the line and just hightailed it out the door. Then as we start down the steps she slugged me again for lying to her cousin. Well, gee? Would she want me to tell him it was us?
**
And now my Gramma’s funeral: **
It was a small funeral, with mostly just family and about 10 or 12 other people that showed. (she outlived most others her age and there just weren’t many around that remembered her)
Since it was 2 hours of visitation time and just us family there until the last few minutes when the other few showed up, we got to talking and sharing stories and fooling around. We were getting pretty bored - no one wanted to look at the casket and start crying, so my Dad’s cousin, who considers herself my cousin as well and knows all about my, uh, “moments”, brings up the old story of what happened to me and my Mom at Uncle Earl’s funeral the previous year. Everyone wanted the story, and she said I had to tell it because she couldn’t remember it well enough, and my Mom was really embarrassed and wouldn’t tell.
So I told the story - and like I do when I’m with people, I sort of acted it out while I told it. As I got to the point where the little old men went “bump bump bump” for the second time down that broken pew, I tripped and reached out my hand to steady myself. Of course it would be that what I reached out to steady myself on was the end of Gramma’s casket - and it was in the middle of this big open space in the church foyer…on a wheeled thing…and we discovered as the casket slowly rolled away from me that those wheels were not locked. Uh oh.
As Gramma rolled off, my arm (my hand was still on the casket) was stretched out and I found myself falling slowly forward in a somewhat graceful manner until with a thump I was full length on the floor on my stomach, in a skirt (yep - real graceful here)…watching everyone as they watched Gramma roll towards the open side door of the church lobby. It was very quiet in that church lobby. No one moved. Finally, one of my cousins yelled out “Well, somebody STOP her or she’s gonna miss her own funeral!” That sent the two funeral guys and the pastor running for the casket. The family was totally useless to help because we were all laughing our butts off at my cousin’s remark. Then after everything settled down we recovered ourselves and decided not to tell any more stories.
But during the funeral the pastor was talking about how this was his first funeral and my Gramma was the first person he had ever met when he visited the hospital and nursing home (he’s a new guy that just started there). He was telling us about the things him and Gramma had talked about…and we were relaxing, thinking this guy was pretty good and we were in good hands, then he mentioned that Gramma had told him to be prepared for the unexpected at her funeral because certain members of her family were known for it. He turned and looked straight at me then and said “I think I know now who she was referring to!” I just about died. Everyone started giggling as I squirmed in my seat.
Unfortunately, there are other funerals, but I’ll leave you with just those two. 
Similar to this, I was at my aunts for Passover and we were all reading from the Haggadah, which was a children’s version instead of the looong dull one we used to read from at a different Seder. Because it was for children it had all these small illustrations of what was being said, only they were REALLY poorly done and cheesy and my sister and I took one look at a drawing of a lamb with the goofiest expression on its face and was were just in giggles for the rest of the night! If a lamb could look retarded, this was the retardiest lamb you could ever imagine! Either that or it had just smoked the biggest joint ever. And of course after that, every other image would just set us off again!
I do this all the time. For some reason I have a bad habit of smiling and chuckling when I gave or receive bad news. I get a lot of “What’s wrong with you?!” looks but I can’t control it; it just happens.
I start uncontrollably laughing whenever I see someone vomit. I don’t know why. It’s not like I find it super-hilarious or anything. It’s just this involuntary reaction. It’s kind of embarrassing sometimes: “Dude, this isn’t funny.” “I know!” “Then why are you laughing?” “I don’t know!”
I had just gotten my hand out of a cast from hand surgery and was sent by my doctor for some physical therapy. The therapist was a woman in her 50’s, a bit plain. She was bending and twisting my hand some, not too bad, but then mentioned something about my hand going numb.
And that was bad. BECAUSE, my friend had just told me about a sex act called The Stranger and I connected the two items and could not stop laughing. And I didn’t feel I could explain to her what I was laughing about.
I swear she twisted and torqued my hand until I was near tears – and not the laughter kind.
I was in the dentist’s chair one time having some major work done and they cranked the laughing gas up real high. I got the giggles and they’d have to stop and wait for me to settle down a bit. He kept saying" what’s so funny?" “I don’t know” “we’ll never get this done with you laughing like this” This went on repeatedly for several minutes until my doc said… “you know it’s not really supposed to make you laugh hysterically”. I felt so bad but I couldn’t help it.
I was about 13 at a family funeral where I laughed at something and got in big big trouble.
George Burns says he did that to Jack Benny, here (the 2:15 mark). The entire clip, though, is worth watching.
I hafta try it.
Years and years ago, at a meeting at work. A large number of people sitting around a conference table, with another ring of people, including me, sitting in chairs against the outer wall. Big boss is presenting a scenario of gloom and doom and says something like “Jimmy Jones calls us with this problem we’ve caused. What are we going to tell him?”
A co-worker/friend sitting nearby mutters, just loud enough for a few of us to hear him “Don’t drink the kool-aid.”
Much suppressed laughter, snorting, bending over to hide our faces ensued.
Big boss chose a really bad name to use for his example.
Yep, funeral for me, too. My cousin died when we were 25. We were close. My sister and I spent most of the night before the funeral drinking and crying in the hotel room. For whatever reason, we were stifling laughter and giggles throughout the funeral service. Not sure why - I think we were reminding each other of funny things he said or did - I can just remember tears running down my face trying not to laugh! Don’t think anyone noticed as there was a lot of crying going on that day.
I was in high school one time and my buddy and I, who I would frequently get into laughing fits with, orchestrated the most random but awesome mockery of a school assembly ever. We were listening to the vice principal speak and after everything he said we would start clapping. Eventually, all the kids in the assembly picked up on it and everyone in the room was pretty much mocking everything the vice principal had to say.
He got so pissed. It was so fucking funny.
I got inappropriate laughtered this weekend. I was walking down the sidewalk and this guy on a bicycle was coming toward me and furthermore swerving all over the sidewalk. So rather than force him off into the street, because there was a curb, I walked into the street which had a fire lane at the time. A full few seconds later, long enough that there was no chance that we were just doing the sidewalk-passing-dance, he went off the sidewalk, down the curb and into the street and continued coming toward me, forcing me back onto the sidewalk. He then laughed.
So either that was his planned trajectory all along and he didn’t realize what he was doing until he saw me (perhaps aided by ingestion of substances,) or he was a real life troll.
My family has always had a morbidly strange sense of humor. At the cemetary portion of my grandmother’s funeral, I noticed we were sitting beside a grave with a stine inscribed with the name “Head”. I leaned over to my aunt, pointed to the stone and asked “I wonder where the rest of him is?”. She responded “I don’t know about all of him, but there is another piece” - she was pointing to a headstone inscribed “Foote”.
Okay, so my Grandpa’s name was (let’s say) Bob Smith.
Grandpa Bob dies after a long and protracted illness, it was horrible for all involved, especially my grandmother who had been his caretaker for years. Things had been really hard on her and she was starting to act… different.
Cut to the funeral home, where everybody is prepping for the showing. So my Aunt, Uncle, and Mom are all standing somberly in the hallway with my Grandma, and Grandma decides she needs to go and be alone with the body for a few minutes.
For a while everybody just stood in silence, but then my Grandma called out from the showing room. ''Bob…"
Everyone exchanges glances as this is so, so sad.
Then my Grandmother again. ‘‘Bob…’’ But there’s a questioning and insistent tone in her voice, like she’s trying to rouse someone from a deep sleep.
‘‘Bob? BOB. Are you there? Bob!’’ As if she expects Grandpa is going to answer her!
People are getting concerned in the hallway. Maybe someone should check up on Grandma.
Finally, ''BOB JONES!??"
Turns out the funeral director’s name is Bob. And he did not understand why everyone in the family, including my grandmother, were laughing hysterically.
When I was a senior in high school, a former classmate of mine lost both her parents in an aircraft accident. A friend and I drove to the funeral together. We joined some other classmates in a pew close to the rear of the church. Shortly afterward, some faculty (religion teacher and one of the nuns) arrived and chose the pew directly in front of us. The religion teacher then put the kneeler down squarely on Sister’s foot. Sister was not known for her low volume even under ordinary circumstances. She howled in protest.
My friend and I looked at one another. Without a word, we both rose and exited the church. Outside, we collapsed into each other’s arms, laughing hysterically. When we had calmed down, we wiped the tears from our eyes and returned to our pew for the service.
I just laughed so hard I choked.
I laughed at my grandfather’s funeral thanks to a horrible singer and my tendency to laugh instead of cry. She was so bad I had to laugh and so did the other 3 pallbearers.
Personally I think the best funerals are where the people can remember the person and actually laugh talking about them. Being respectful doesn’t mean being stoic and somber, though it’s better if you do it at the viewing and not the burial. Regardless you shouldn’t feel bad about not being constantly miserable, just don’t be purposefully disrespectful.
I’m sure I’ve told this story before…
I tend to laugh inappropriately at funerals. There’s just something absurd about them. Several years ago, my former husband and I were at his grandmother’s funeral. He was a pallbearer, so he was sitting in the front pew on the left side of the church, and I was sitting next to his parents two rows back on the right side. The preacher was on a roll, extolling the virtues of grandma, and there were several church members (unrelated to the deceased) sitting on the altar with him that I quickly dubbed the cheering section (they were yelling out the "Amen"s and "Hallelujah"s at random points). Former husband and I were not of the same religious persuasion as the congregation, so it was even more absurd than normal. Everything was in place for me to completely lose it… and it happened when the preacher said the following (slightly paraphrased):
“Mrs. X was a good Christian woman. She was an excellent role model for Christian behavior. Just an amazing Christian. And now that she’s gone home, she’s become the perfect Christian. Because it’s only in death we achieve the perfection that we strive for in life, that perfect embodiment of a good Christian. But we should continue to strive for that perfection, even before we’re called home to God, so that we can be living examples to those around us. What the world needs is more dead Christians.”
I saw my former husband lean forward, saw his shoulders begin to shake, and almost chewed through my cheek trying to keep from laughing. For YEARS after we would crack each other up by deadpanning “What the world needs is more dead Christians.”