to have laughed my head off when I read about a recently deceased friend?

[Bogeyface]

I found out last night that he had passed away, he was a good friend and a good man. He died relatively young of (currently unexplained) but natural causes. He wife is obviously devastated as are we all and his will be a very well attended funeral.

His death was reported in the local paper tonight and when I read it I got an image in my mind of him walking into the pub quiz tomorrow like a Saint, making a big deal about what an amazing man he is. He would laugh and joke about the comments some of his friends made in the paper, and say that no one can say a bad word about him as he is clearly the new Messiah! I can just see this, he had such a wicked sense of humour, was very self depricating and would have absolutely loved to have read that about himself.

My mum said, when I was laughing and said "Who is this?! This isnt the X I know!" that it was in bad taste and I shouldn't speak ill of the dead. I'm not speaking ill of him at all, I just cant get out of my head how much he would have loved people saying such things. He will be very missed both on a personal level by everyone who knew him and on a community level too. He was that kind of man. But he knew his flaws and would never have shied away from admitting to them.

AIBU to read it and laugh at the thought of that?

Yanbu!

That's how I would want to be remembered. By people laughing and taking the mick about things I said and did.

Loved ones don't want you to be miserable it won't bring them back. You have to remember the funny times and be honest about who the person was.

I had to supress a giggle at the funeral of my grandfather. All his life he was a drama queen, everyone one of his emotions had to be displayed in a very dramatic manner. He 'Tried' to kill himself on numerous occasions, putting his head in an electric oven with a pillow to rest on because he wanted to die comfortably, trying to hang himself with a piece of string in the garage. All of these attempts was for attention only.

When he decided it was his time to die, he starved himself to death.

At his funeral they played 'I did it my way', it tickled me.

Sorry for your loss. Your friend, I think, would prefer to be remembered for the joy they brought you rather than the sadness.

When I was at my grandad's funeral, I could see him in my mind's eye looking round at us from his wheelchair and bursting with pride that we'd all come to see him. He had a mischievous twinkle in his eye, and I could imagine him interrupting the reminiscences of himself with what were known in the family as his "Little stories" and adding little details to the stories about himself.

It's lovely I think, laughter is human

Yanbu, I think it's lovely that you remember your friend with such fondness. I'm so sorry for your loss x

Try being in a family of undertakers and a Pagan for an apparently strange outlook on death! I'm actually thinking of retraining as an Undertaker.
My family funerals have usually ended up being full of laughter, one ended in hysterics because of something that happened at the crematorium (it would out me to say what it was though), it would have really tickled the family member being remembered and it set us all off!
My IL's are of the almost Victorian mourning variety which is fine for them but they think I'm weird..

Forgot to say YANBU at all and so sorry for your loss

We giggled a lot when my mum died .... me and my sister nearly fell about in the church when the priest was explaining to my brother (he has severe LD) that mums coffin was going to be brought in on a trolly ... ' what a TESCO trolly' he said... laughing and joking in the funeral car helped him deal with everything about the day.

I like laughing about the deceased you find out so much more about people from funny stories others had of them than people sat about in black drinking tea and telling you how sorry they are they xxxx has died

We much preferred people coming to tell us how mum stole a rose bush from neighbours garden when the neighbours moved out, under the cover of darkness , or how she got so drunk on her sister hen do her brothers had to carry her back to hotel etc...

To me death is about celerbrating life