That’s what we say afterwards over coffee. That and “Well, she looked like she was dead for the last five years anyhow!”
I forgot to say that after we say that, we add “Bless her heart.” Anything bitchy can be made all good with the addition of a heart blessing.
My dad didn’t look overly made up or anything, but his hair was awful. The style wasn’t anything he ever wore in life, leading my mom to quip that he’d haunt us if we let him get buried that way. We called over the funeral director to point it out, and had them style it properly.
My sister had me retie Dad’s tie because she decided it wasn’t tied the way Dad would have tied it and that since I’m left handed like he was I tie my ties the same way. That was kinda oogy to do but I did it. Now, Dad Rests In Peace with a perfect Windsor knot.
My sister-in-law died young and she was another who probably looked better laid out than at the end of her life. She unfortunately did a number on her body with alcohol, cigarettes and who knows what. She looked younger than she had in a while.
I don’t remember any details about the way my grandmother looked, but I do remember that there was a viewing and then the funeral, which was held at the gravesite. The bad part was that they opened the coffin again at the cemetary, and flies kept landing on her. Aaaagh!
Another vote for the fire next time.
My dad looked remarkably good, for being dead and all. I was fairly young when my paternal grandparents died, but I don’t have any traumatic nightmares, so they must have been OK. Mom’s parents looked like themselves, too. I’m thinking the mortician they used (he dated my mom eons ago) was just very good at what he did.
I’ve always preferred open casket funerals myself. Either I’m a sicko nut-job, or it helps me attain closure, and I’m not ruling out either of those. 
Most times FayeNell does decent work, but I went to a funeral last month and the deceased looked as if he’d been carved from a solid block of makeup, bless his heart.
That was probably Raylene’s work. FayeNell was probably off that day. Raylene always tarts em up too much.
My grandparents looked good. Grandma’s hair wasn’t overly poofy, and she looked like she did her own makup. I think they even used her own lipstick. Grandpa looked absolutely angelic. You know how sweet babies look when they’re sleeping? That’s how Grandpa looked. His hands, though, looked like marble.
Last month at Grandpa’s visitation (why do they call it that???), I noticed something about the funeral home. On either side of the casket, next to all the sprays of flowers, they had floor lamps with fricken red bulbs. I’m sure it’s so the body isn’t shown in harsh light, but damn it just made me think “House of Ill Repute.”
The funeral was at church, in non-red lighting. That’s where Grandpa looked like a sleeping boy. When we all filed up to get our last glimpse of him before his casket was closed, I kissed my fingertips and then put them on his lips. That was weird.
Dad was cremated. When I dust our TV cabinet, I pick his cremains (in a carved wooden box, of course), give them a shake and say, “Hey Dad.” He’d find that hilarious.
My mother will be cremated—no funeral, no embalming—but I am going to make sure she’s got her lipstick on before they cremate her. She never goes anywhere without lipstick on.
We had my dog cremated; she’s in a cedar box on a table in my living room. Ever since my next-door neighbor had a fit over seeing the box on display, it has become somewhat of a joke in my family to tell visitors, “Say hi to the dog!”
A cousin who had her mother cremated likes to move the urn from one room to the other throughout the year. She’ll often make casual remarks like, “I’m planning to put Mother in the den for Christmas” or “I think I’ll put Mother in the dining room for Thanksgiving.”
My family generally goes the cremation route, but I think I’d prefer something a little more artistic. That’s why I want my funeral handled by the Will Vinton Studio. Write up a little script, and through the magic of stop-motion photography I can address the mourners from beyond the grave. The future isn’t with cremation, it isn’t with dremation. From now on, it’s claymation, baby!
At dad’s, we knew there were going to be a buttload of flowers anyway, but the funeral home still tried to get us to buy more. My mom took one look at the catalogue and said, “These would make it look like he was a Mafia don!”
Were they real or fake flowers? Quite a few of the flower arrangements at my grandmother’s funeral were artificial, but I don’t remember how we got them. Most of these arrangements are now in the attic at my parents’ house.
My mother gave my great aunt Toni perms throughout her life, and when my great aunt died my mother did her (my great aunt’s) hair for the funeral. Who would know better what she liked?
I refused to attend the viewing of my dear grandmother because I didn’t want to have that mental image of her. The last memory I have of her is her smoking a Pall Mall, drinking a Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer, and singing the song “I Saw Her Snatch.”
That how I like to picture the Pope’s final moments, too . . .
I hear he was more of a Bud man, but aside from that I think you may be on to something.
“I saw her snatch it from the window,
I saw her but, I saw no more.
I saw ass, she went down to the station,
To see her brother, Jack, off on the train.”
I’m guessing it would play better in Latin.
My baby twin cousins died a week after birth. No, I didn’t go to the funeral, but my mom did, and she said they looked like bloated cabbage patch kids. She said it was really disturbing. I bet it was upsetting for their mother.
If it were me, I would have preferred to not have them embalmed. I don’t want to be embalmed either. I think it’s absolutely disgusting. Put me in a freezer until it’s time to be buried in a cheap pine box, thank you.
But, I *want * to be painted and tarted up like a two-bit hooker. I’m sure there will be at least one or two people at my funeral who will look at me and say, “Yeah, I knew she had it in her all along…”
My dad had an open casket, and he had his glasses on. It sort of creeped me out. I asked my mom about it- I said he looked like he shoud have a New York Times crossword puzzle propped up in front of him. She said he didn’t “look right” without his glasses, so she had the funeral home add them for the viewing. It didn’t occur to me to ask her if they took them off before the actual burial, though. He looked pretty good, all things considered. He looked so bad the last few weeks of his life, he was in so much pain and so unhappy.
The funeral home we used also insists that every, ahem, decedent, wear socks. The head funeral guy told my mom that he can't stand to bury someone without socks.