Funerals
The odd thing about funerals is how they veer from super sad to often pretty fun. Yes, you are sad the person passed away, but holy crap there is your long lost cousin and the next thing you know everyone has a beer and we’re talking about the time you did that thing with the wagon going down the hill into the creek with the snakes. So many snakes.
#1: Staining the coffin
This isn’t really “ha ha” funny, but more the other type of funny. Sad funny? Stupid funny?
Here we are at the actual grave site and the minister says nice words about my grandmother. We all stand up and on our way out we put a rose on her coffin. Sweet. It looks nice.
Then we are standing around wondering what to do next. It’s really hot and I suspect we are all thinking, “boy, it’s hot. I’d like to get out of here but how soon is too soon to leave?”
We’re standing around.
The funeral-home guy pipes up and delivers a very complicated speech about the roses.
“Folks, I just wanted to let you know, we’ll take the roses off the casket and leave them on the grave site. I wanted you to know this in case you come back later and see them there. We do that because the flowers are organic matter and they’ll stain the coffin. I mean, we can leave them on the coffin, but like I said, they will stain the coffin. It’s up to you. What I’d recommend...”
He keeps going on. Dad is all like, “however you normally do it is fine”.
You are not leaving the flowers on the coffin because it will stain the coffin? You know what else will stain the coffin? My grandmother’s corpse. And dirt. And moisture. And time.
Holy shit. Are you serious? Who will ever see this coffin again? Which, by the way, cost 5.3 million dollars.
Are you serious? Are you worried about what future geologists will think when they happen to dig up the coffin to make room for yet another space highway?
“Well, those jerks back in the unenlightened era sure didn’t care about not staining their coffins”.
For real?
For real?
#2 Jaded
The reception as I noted earlier was held in the lobby / socializing space of the assisted care living facility she had lived in. It was a nice set up. Very handsome space and they had food and a little display of photos of her. A guestbook.
Mrs. Robot is sitting there and spies three women approaching. She senses that they are crashing the party. They are at the table studying the photographs. One woman picks up the photo of my grandmother and says, “Oh, she lives here.”
Mrs. Robot stands up to chat with them and tells them that the woman in the photo (our grandma) had just passed away. The party-crashing ladies slowly look around and realize that they are at a reception for a funeral. And then look at Mrs. Robot wearing her black dress and standing next to the table with all the photographs of the deceased.
One of the women pauses for that perfect beat and then says, “Well. It happens.” and walks off.
