Funny moments at funerals

[GwinCoch]

This isn’t really an AIBU, but thought it fit here the best. The other thread about dress at funerals made me think about how differently we all remember those we have lost. It also made me think about a very silly thing that happened at my Nana’s funeral where we all lost it to laughter.

I know there are cultures and people who believe in absolute solemnity. So this thread might not be for you, although of course you’re welcome here. But I have always found that laughter and silliness has made grief so much easier to deal with. So, this is a thread for funny moments at funerals. And for anyone who thinks that this is disrespectful or wrong, you are entitled to your feelings. But this is a thread for those of us who lost our mind to the giggles which were the other side of grief.

I gave another example on the other thread, but it was the same funeral - my paternal Nana. And because she never went to church but decided to be buried there (I have six relatives buried there) the vicar didn’t really know what to say about her, he didn’t know her. (That’s another issue for people to quibble about outside of this thread!) So my dad was working in Uganda, flew home and took care of all of the arrangements.

The service began: “And what can we say about this woman? Mother of five? Her middle son works in Uganda…” and the rest of the eulogy was about my dad’s job! Really?! We did the rest of the service and then went to the pub for the post-funeral and everyone was queuing up to talk to my dad - it was the funniest thing. We’re Welsh valleys we don’t mince our words but it no one was horrid it was just every minute “Raise a glass to Nana - but more importantly to her son who works in Uganda!” Everyone was howling and my dad kept saying: “She was a very private person!” We all call him SURNAME of Uganda now, like a Livingstone joke. He laughs about it too and has stopped defending it now!

My dad died in 2015, and we had a few aunts die at a similar time. At all the funerals, the priest read the eulogy, based on what relations told him. In every case, it was awful. At one aunt's funeral, who bet once a year at the National, he made her sound like she had a gambling problem. At every funeral since, my husband has insisted on doing the eulogy. His older brother died in 2016, and that was the first and hardest, but I, and he, strongly believe it should be a family member, if possible, read the tribute to the deceased. It doesn't matter if you struggle and choke up during it. It is the right thing to do. Having said that, our neighbour died suddenly at the age if 73, and his wife tried to say a few words, and that was painful for her, but it helps the grieving.

It seems a similar story when they are not congregation. My situation made us laugh, but it sounds that this wasn’t your experience. I’m sorry if it made your grieving worse. This thread is absolutely not about mocking loss. Just the levity that some of us found in the circumstances.

A vicar did the eulogy for my extremely atheist brother's eulogy. All I could think was how much he would have hated it! He did read out a short thing one of my nieces wrote which was much funnier and more like him, about how annoying he was and how you generally wanted to strangle him.

It wasn't funny at the time but I did think it would be funny later, they nearly dropped my brother.

I had warned the funeral directors he was quite big (at least 20 stone) and they'd had to order an extra large casket.

When they pulled him from the hearse they really struggled to get him into the trolley and at one point the whole thing listed wildly to one side while we all watched aghast!

My mom and her sister are terrible at funerals, I think they've been to too many as they are late 70s/early eighties. At my uncle's burial they were trying to get a good view and so were walking all over other graves while my brother (live at this point) and I tried to herd them into an appropriate place.

Same burial I realised we'd lost my dad. He'd wondered off to find his mom's grave and was panicking as he couldn't find her. I had to abandon the misbehaving pensioners to help him track down the grave, turns out the ancient tree he navigated by had been chopped down. Much relief when we found her.

My FiL is the archetypal grumpy old Yorkshireman, not known for displaying much emotion. When his mum died, he and his sister had 5 DC and 11 very small DGC between them. The funeral was on a bitterly cold February day, in Hull, with the east wind howling. FiLjust about staggered through the eulogy without crying. One by one the babies and toddlers were taken out as their patience waned (their presence had been requested) and the older kids started to kick a football about. At the end of the service, FiL came outbid the chapel and saw them and scored a goal!! All the kitties cheered! He said later that coming out of the crematorium to the kids playing football lifted his heart on such a hard day for him.

When FIL died my oldest son was 5. The vicar said at one point 'Let us pray' with great solemnity and DS piped up at the top of his lungs with the instruction; 'hands together everyone!!). Then when there was some silence after the prayer he bellowed out the query; 'Is this when we sing happy Birthday to Granddad now?'.

I remember travelling home from my grandad’s funeral and we got a slow puncture in the funeral car.

He was a total car enthusiast that we all laughed that he’d be looking down taking the mickey as the tyre was sorted that the one time he had a car failure was when he departed.

I’m a shadow of a person and that made me good flinch. What a gorgeous chap.

My neice was 5 when my grandmother passed away, we had made a couple of stops in the hearse to her favourite places. I remember her saying "is granny still in the boot" when we were on the way home after the funeral. I was absolutely devastated, but that made us all confused and laugh.

haven’t had time until now to share.
My great uncle was very Welsh and very, very religious. This meant at his funeral i 2002, we had three, extremely elderly, ministers officiating (from each of the chapels he attended every Sunday), all of whom were determined to be the most devoted to him and all of whom insisted on giving an extended eulogy. The funeral service went on for AGES, well over the allotted time especially considering that we also had to get to the crematorium which is a good 20 miles away.
By the time the last minister got up to speak we could all see the funeral director practically dancing with frustration and impatience. The minister didn’t take the hint and it was another half hour before we were finally released to head towards the crem. for which we were already late.
I always thought hearses and funeral cars had speed limiters. I learned that day they don’t. We screeched off at at least 80 along the dual carriageway. God only knows what other drivers thought.
We arrived at the crem. SAS style, scattering the assembled mourners for the next funeral as, aided by the frantically gesticulating crem staff, we leaped out of cars and ran into the chapel. The coffin was brought in at a run as the organist played the fastest version of Abide With Me I’ve ever heard. We stood for the coffin, sat for the rest of Abide With Me, gabbled a prayer, saw the curtains closed and were out of there in less than two minutes.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a harder time keeping a straight face in my life.

Three things at my nanna funeral -

when we were travelling to the crematorium the undertaker/ person who was in the hearse got out to direct the driver round a corner when he fall down a pot hole it was something my nanna would always joke about to fall down a pothole “where there is a blame there is a claim “

then she had her whole funeral planned with the undertakers after a horrible terminal illness including the songs and she wanted Whitney Houston's version of i will always love you but they played i wanna dance with someone instead so there we were all crying and paying our respects as we left the crematorium to the lyrics of my nannas favorite song that she didnt want ruining for us by mistake

finally we don’t really have much to do with our family but at the wake i had a distant aunt try and set 17 year old me up with her 37 year old nephew , in her words “ he's adopted so its fine “

My aunt requested a no-prayers or hymns service at the crem; her daughters hired a Humanist officiant who came round a week before, to gather some info and make notes about the deceased she'd never met, for her speech. Unfortunately she told the bereaved she was quite excited as she had only just this was her first service after finishing her training.

So excited she must have got her notes or funerals mixed up, because at the funeral she delivered a very detailed story about someone else; different name, different family, lifestory, all in excruciating detail. Nobody knew how to stop her. When she got to how Wrongname was a well known sight driving round the village in her much loved little red car, we were all in hysterics. Afterwards she asked if we'd like her to attend the funeral meal to comfort the bereaved; we declined.

A friend of ours had been a trendy young thing in the 1960's, with a large collection of psychedelic hippy shirts. Later, he became a very staid respectable pinstripe and threepiece accountant, church elder, etc. All his life, at parties he'd wear one of the terrible hippy shirts to celebrate . The only time his wife and family would let them out of the closet.

At his funeral, all his sons, male relatives and closest friends were each wearing one of his hippy shirt collection.

My father’s coffin was to be carried out of the church after the service to Ave Marie sung by Russell Watson. George was in charge of the cassette player and tape and got flustered and started the tape in the wrong place. Suddenly the six men carrying my father in his coffin were bouncing up the church Aisle to Dean Martin’s That’s Amore - “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, That’s Amore”

Elderly uncle at his sister’s funeral stood up at the end of the service as the coffin was being taken out, said loudly and clearly “what a lovely wedding that was”. Cue, much muffled laughter.

Wonderful

At the funeral of my lovely aunt, my sister and I couldn’t find a parking space near the church . We parked around the back streets but then realised that in order to be on time we would have to leg it through a parkland, which meant climbing through a hedge. As we helped each other through in our black dresses and heels we saw a squirrel darting about and had to make a run for it. We arrived with bits of hedge on us in a quite ruffled state. My aunt would have found that hilarious. We used to go to a local park altogether with my cousins as kids and feed the squirrels, I can’t help but think she sent that one to hurry us up to church!

Love this 🥰

I'm a massive fan of the TV series Midsomer Murders (up until the first Barnaby left). There's an episode (Secrets and Spies) where a guy has been rehearsing his own funeral and towards the end of the episode he gets kidnapped by one of the other characters who locks him up in his coffin he was in (deciding what postition he should be in in it when he dies) and this other character takes him the crematorium and attempts to burn him alive in it. The police intervene and rescue him and unlock the box just in the nick of time, the guy sits bolt upright like a shot in the box and start singing along to his funeral song of choice that's is playing, which was "Bread of Heaven".

Fast forward many years later and unfortunately my great grandfather passed away in his late 90's. The vicar does his bit...and then comes the hymns...and of course, one that he had chosen was "Bread of Heaven"! I was so devestated by his death and there I was struggling to sing along to this hymn whilst trying desperately not to laugh out loud whilst also being consumed by grief because all I could think of was that really funny scene from that episode of Midsomer Murders when that song was played! 😂

Thanks! He is 13 and still makes me rock with laughter at what he comes out with on occasion.

Sorry, I didn't mean it to come across like, that. I just think that it helps for someone who knew the bereaved to do the eulogy. Much more personal and helps the grieving. My husband shared a bedroom with his brother, and brought up tales of childhood, that brought a smile to everyones faces.

After my great aunt died there was a church service followed by a quick drive to the crematorium for a service in their chapel.

The organist at the crematorium wasn’t very good and kept playing the wrong note which had me and my sister in fits of silent laughter. Nearly 30 years later we still laugh about it, if you ever heard Les Dawson playing piano then it was exactly like that.

At a family funeral (bright colours) one of the funeral goers arrived very late and snuck in almost as the service was ending.

The reason was that the crem had two chapels - and he’d accidentally gone to the wrong one, a very somber, black affair, in his hot pink golf trousers and Hawaiian shirt. And it took him ten minutes to realise he was at the wrong funeral….

This reminds me of this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=20xstCWkBco&pp=ygUZZGF2ZSBhbGxlbiBmdW5lcmFsIHNrZXRjaA%3D%3D

My uncle was a vicar and told me about the same error occurring at a wedding. The poor bride had to walk down the aisle to it! 😆

There was a similar storyline in Roger, Roger (written by John Sullivan of Only Fools and Horses fame). The widow asked for the theme from The Bodyguard (i.e. Whitney Houston)… the vicar played “I Could Be So Good For You” by Dennis Waterman 😆😆