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Perhaps it happens more often where the funeral involves a lot of relatives who haven't all come together for a good number of years, so it's as much a family reunion as it is a wake/ repast. When my Grandfather died we had probably close to a hundred family members in attendance from all over the country. Many of them hadn't seen each other for years and years so there was a lot of eating, drinking, story telling and catching up, while children of all ages ran around adding to the 'reunion' type of atmosphere.
This is typical in my experience.
I've been to many funerals over the years. They varied, based mostly on the age of the deceased and how they died. For instance, the funeral of a child has always differed a LOT from the funeral of an elderly person. I remember distinctly the military funeral of a young man killed in action - it was somber in a way, but he wasn't a somber person and so as his casket was taken out through the church, some rock music was playing and the atmosphere lightened up considerably. My husband died unexpectedly and suddenly, and he was from this area and had tons of friends and family so his funeral was pretty huge, and it had some somber times but frankly, I sort of got tickled at one point and leaned over to his son and said, "He'd be saying WHAT THE HELL about this time!" Which was about true, and his son and I started actually laughing quietly in the middle of his funeral for goodness sake. And then my GRANDFATHER'S funeral frankly was pretty hilarious. He had been, sorry Granddaddy, but a pretty horrible person, all his life. He had not gone gently into that good night either. He had raged, raged against the dying of the light! He hadn't darkened the door of a church in decades. He had been married about five times at least. Oh goodness, he was a hot mess, but the pastor tried to give a sermon and act like he knew my granddaddy, whom he didn't know from a hole in the ground. Plus the pastor, who none of us knew, including his only legitimate (notice that?) son, my dad, had some sort of weird inflection to his voice, so the more he talked the funnier it got. I kept thinking to myself, "Don't look at your son, don't look at your son!" This was my teenaged son who has exactly the same sense of humor I have (twisted and strange). Anyway, eventually I DID catch his eye, and OMG, we started laughing, but of course we couldn't laugh out loud. And then the pastor said something else and honestly, I thought I was going to die - but once again, I couldn't laugh out loud. And then, OMG, THEN my cousin, WHO THOUGHT MY SON AND I WERE CRYING WHEN WE WERE ACTUALLY ABOUT TO HOWL WITH LAUGHTER, passed us the BOX OF KLEENEXES at the end of the aisle and Lord have mercy, I thought for sure I was going to lose it then! And then, the service was over, and the family had to file past his coffin and look at him one last time, and so I stood up, barely controlling myself, and walked down the aisle and looked at him and then took off for the little room on the side for family, and the second, the SECOND the door closed behind me, my mother, who was not an affectionate person usually, held her arms out to me and said, "Baby!" and I like to have lost it. I began to literally howl with laughter! In retrospect, I think it was sort of a case of nerves too, but believe me, my mother, the deceased's daughter in law, totally understood! So did everyone else for that matter. Thank goodness.
So sometimes funerals are somber, and sometimes well, they just aren't.
That is hilarious KA.
At one of my great aunt’s funeral, an aunt and cousin were seated together and started supporting each other while crying. My grandfather (great aunt’s brother) kept turning around, chastising them for not keeping it together, “Not at MY SISTER’S FUNERAL!” He was getting angrier by the minute! Turns out he knew that instead of crying, they were actually trying to restrain themselves from laughing hysterically.
At my mom’s viewing two of my cousins burst out laughing. No one was offended. I actually made a few jokes. When a few relatives said, “she looks good, but not like herself.” I replied, “Well she is dead, you know.” Or, “She’s not at her best today.”
Yet I cried while reading a poem I’d written. You just have to go with the flow.
We've all heard stories of people who made it clear in life that there was to be no dour somberness at their funeral, they want people to remember their life with music and laughter and have a PARTY. To such a person, a bunch of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth is what would be disrespectful.
I can never forget when I was volunteering at a hospice facility that the extended family of a dying man were gathered around his bed. Someone was always holding his hand or mopping his brow, but mostly, they were reminiscing about how much he meant to them, often laughing at funny stories. They ordered in food and invited me to join them. To whatever extent the dying man was aware, I'm sure all this pleased him. Why would it be any different in death, if there were an afterlife?
We've all heard stories of people who made it clear in life that there was to be no dour somberness at their funeral, they want people to remember their life with music and laughter and have a PARTY. To such a person, a bunch of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth is what would be disrespectful.
I can never forget when I was volunteering at a hospice facility that the extended family of a dying man were gathered around his bed. Someone was always holding his hand or mopping his brow, but mostly, they were reminiscing about how much he meant to them, often laughing at funny stories. They ordered in food and invited me to join them. To whatever extent the dying man was aware, I'm sure all this pleased him. Why would it be any different in death, if there were an afterlife?
I TOTALLY agree with every word of this. I just wanted to tell you that.
That is hilarious KA.
At one of my great aunt’s funeral, an aunt and cousin were seated together and started supporting each other while crying. My grandfather (great aunt’s brother) kept turning around, chastising them for not keeping it together, “Not at MY SISTER’S FUNERAL!” He was getting angrier by the minute! Turns out he knew that instead of crying, they were actually trying to restrain themselves from laughing hysterically.
At my mom’s viewing two of my cousins burst out laughing. No one was offended. I actually made a few jokes. When a few relatives said, “she looks good, but not like herself.” I replied, “Well she is dead, you know.” Or, “She’s not at her best today.”
Yet I cried while reading a poem I’d written. You just have to go with the flow.
I wrote and gave the eulogy at my brother's funeral in 2006. He was not religious, but he agreed to let my mother have her pastor officiate at a service at the funeral home because it would mean something to her. The pastor called me and asked me if I would speak, because he only knew my brother from my mother's perspective.
I spent the next day or so writing and editing my speech. My brother could be a cranky bastid, and I pointed out in the eulogy that he believed that traffic was put on the roads just to annoy him. That brought more laughs than I expected. But he also loved his daughter more than any man I ever knew, and she was his whole life, and I pointed that out, too.
I made them laugh, and I made them cry, and that was my goal and I accomplished it. Afterward, the pastor thanked me for making his job easy and said I was a hard act to follow. He did his readings and his prayers, and that was enough.
When cleaning out old papers during COVID, I came across a written copy of the eulogy. It began with the quote:
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp as dawn has come – Rabindranath Tagore
That is hilarious KA.
At one of my great aunt’s funeral, an aunt and cousin were seated together and started supporting each other while crying. My grandfather (great aunt’s brother) kept turning around, chastising them for not keeping it together, “Not at MY SISTER’S FUNERAL!” He was getting angrier by the minute! Turns out he knew that instead of crying, they were actually trying to restrain themselves from laughing hysterically.
At my mom’s viewing two of my cousins burst out laughing. No one was offended. I actually made a few jokes. When a few relatives said, “she looks good, but not like herself.” I replied, “Well she is dead, you know.” Or, “She’s not at her best today.”
Yet I cried while reading a poem I’d written. You just have to go with the flow.
I have to say, this made me LOL. My Mom told me a story that when my Dad's father died, his "wake" (viewing the night before the funeral) was held in the living room of the family home, as was custom back then. She saw my Dad and his brother-in-law standing in front of the casket, shoulders heaving from grief. Then she realized -- it wasn't grief, they were hysterically laughing about something. I learned that this was typical of my Dad's family. They were always joking, even if they were standing right in front of the casket. (Never saw this at a child's wake, though.) It was just their way of dealing. And in this case, my Dad's father had committed suicide, so it was a pretty tragic event.
On my Mom's side, the big Irish wake the night before was tradition. (Now most people call them viewings.) I don't remember any where everything was totally somber. Usually when relatives are chatting in the back of the room, there will be some occasional laughter.
Your responses were really funny and I'm sure put people at ease.
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