8. Proper Send-off
My dad always said that when he died, he didn't want everyone standing around and being sad. Instead, he wanted a party. So when my dad died unexpectedly, we threw him a heck of funeral. Except we didn't call it a funeral. We called it a going away party. It was held on a Sunday in my parent’s backyard on a warm December day.
There was a keg of his favorite beer and three huge bottles of his favorite bourbon. Everyone had to wear jeans and a t-shirt because my dad hated dressing up. If someone wore a collared shirt, they were given one of my dad's t-shirts to wear. Everyone drank and told stories about my dad. At one point, we had almost 100 people in backyard with a drink in their hand to toast my dad. The going away party also featured a huge bonfire and fireworks.
People still tell me it was the best funeral they ever went to.
9. Piece of Cake
My great aunt had dementia and we took her to a funeral. There were lots of people dressed nicely. She began grinning broadly and commenting on how wonderful it was for everyone to show up at the birthday party. A large white bible was open on the pulpit and some nice flowers were resting on its open pages. My great aunt pointed at it and exclaimed loudly, "Look! There's the birthday cake!"
We all agreed it was lovely and helped her to her seat. It was a great humorous moment in an otherwise somber affair. When she finally passed away herself, we made sure that a similar arrangement of flowers was on the bible at her funeral. I like to think that she was looking down on us and laughing at the inside joke.
10. Compassion After Death
When I was a lot younger (around 10) my great aunt died and I went to her funeral. As somber as funerals are, after a while kids will be kids and my cousins and I started wandering around the funeral home bored out of our skulls. We happened across a body in a different room in an open casket, but there was no one in there. No signs, no flowers, I'm surprised the lights were even on. It was freaky and one of the saddest things I've ever seen and it sobered us up at once.
My older cousin asked the director what was happening since it looked like that room was storing her like she was a prop or something. We found out that she died and some distant relative had paid for the wake out of a sense of obligation since she had no other surviving family. My cousin cried when she realized the truth: Not one person went in to her wake besides us. That's when we decided to take some of my great aunt's flowers and bring them to the other room so it looked less barren.
11. Gone with the Wind
A lonely but rich client of my lawyer friend wanted to have his ashes sprinkled over Sydney Harbour. The lawyer had spent months trying to get official permission without success. One Friday night - half pissed after office drinks - a few of them decided to catch the Manly ferry, say a few solemn words, and tip the contents of the urn (that had been sitting in their office for months) into the harbor.
The wind caught the ashes and blew them all up over the passengers on the top deck.
12. Final Requests
I've been an embalmer/funeral director for a decade. People ask and say some weird stuff, like a husband asking if I could make his dead wife's chest to look "perkier" and a few people who wanted to watch the embalming. When people request songs to play at the service, they want everything from "Staying Alive" (why?) to "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore.
But the story that always sticks with me is this one. When I was talking about burial options, a person said the cruelest words I've ever heard: "She's dead, I don't care, get rid of her the cheapest way possible."
13. Tooth and Nail
My dad died in a motorcycle accident. My aunt (his sister) showed up high with a tooth. She had gone to the crash site and dug around for two hours and found one of my dad's teeth. Then she proceeded to show it to many people at his funeral.
14. Tears of Sympathy
I once saw someone poor a little water on the corpse’s face saying, "so he's crying with us."
15. Bad Parenting
I’m a funeral director. We had a service for a young man who died from a reaction to a medication. Parents come in, and they aren't typical grief-stricken adults who lost a child. Rather, they think that this is a perfect time to argue. And fight with each other. Loudly. The director handling arrangements is quickly overwhelmed. Instructs them to calm down. They refuse. They start screaming. She threatens to stab him. He says he'll shoot her. Director runs away and calls the police.
Police show up. Remind these two that they aren't allowed within several hundred feet of each other - court ordered separation. They argue with the officer. End up arrested, and off they go. And they don't come back.
We're stuck now. We have remains and nothing we can do about it. We call a lawyer and a private investigator to track down the next closest thing this kid has to a relative. Finally get a grandparent and once the body has passed into legally being abandoned, we contact them. They apologize to us for the situation, authorize a simple burial, and we do all the funeral disposition portions at no charge just to get away from our predicament. The grandparents own cemetery property, so they allow him on the family plot...but the crazy stuff is just getting started.
Months go by. Almost a year. Apparently, the parents of this child get out. We don't see them but the grandparents warn us. It is important to note that our funeral home also runs a couple cemeteries. At night, the phone lines for the cemeteries get forwarded to the director on call. It's 2:30 am. I get a call from a sheriff’s deputy.
The parents were fighting in the cemetery. The sheriff is pretty sure the mom grabbed a shepherd’s hook (iron post meant to hold a flower basket) and stabbed the dad. "He's covered in blood but it's not serious and he won't talk to us." The deputy says. "I'm going to cite them for trespass and dump them downtown, but I need you to sign."
I go to the cemetery where their kid is buried. Nobody is there. I call him back thinking maybe he'd already left. But the sheriff says, "He's at XYZ Gardens." I insist that "Their son is buried at ABC Gardens." The line goes silent. The cop slowly says, "You're telling me these two stupid people don't even know where their kid is buried?"
They'd apparently gone to a cemetery, found a grave with a headstone with a relatively similar name to their son’s, and proceeded to trash the site and fight. Never noticing the grave there was for a 90-plus year old. Not their junior high school aged kid.
16. Cousin Scam
At a funeral I attended, my cousin brought his weird pyramid scheme juice he was selling and pitched them to everyone.
17. Aunty Illusional
At my great aunt's funeral, my grandmother (her sister in law) kept trying to light cigarettes inside, danced around with no shoes on "because it was so boring," and, worst of all, commented on how my great aunt wouldn't be dead if she wasn't so fat. Here's the kicker: They were best friends. Woo hoo for dementia.
18. Biker Code
This is the story of how we discovered my uncle's secret double life...at his funeral. My uncle was a defense attorney in south Texas. His funeral was a small service with mostly family and a few friends. However, as everyone was leaving, a large group of bikers were waiting in the parking lot. It turns out he had been a part of the group for some time in his younger years and they had come to pay their respects.
They shook his wife's hand, gave their condolences, and drove off as a group. He was a pretty laid back/goofy guy, great with kids, so it was mostly crazy to just find out about that part of his life. I also was always impressed that they came to show support, but without interrupting a very personal ceremony – showed a lot of character.
19. Gotta Laugh
After my mom was cremated and put in her velvet bag, I nudged my brother and said, "That's mom?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Wow. She's lost weight." My aunt was furious, but my mom would've laughed her butt off.
20. Sorry, But You’re Going to Have to Mooove
When the funeral procession showed up at the cemetery, there was a cow in my uncle's grave. We had to wait for them to remove it with a backhoe before we could proceed with the funeral.
21. Making Your Bed
I used to work at a store that sold funeral things, like headstones, flowers, caskets, etc. A couple came into the showroom and wanted to look around. Everything was going fine, until I realized that these people were not normal. They found a casket they liked. They wanted to know if it could be wired for a tv and radio. They wanted to know if we could repaint parts of it.
They also wanted to know if we could make it bigger as they didn't think they both could fit in the standard size. I had no idea but offered to go find out. They said never mind and that this one would probably fit the both of them. Then they asked if they could get inside to try it out. I politely told them no and excused myself to get a manager who promptly removed them from the store.
22. Thank You for Your Service
I had a friend that was notorious for one-night Craigslist hookups with soldiers from the local army base. When he died, a handful of men in the military that none of us knew came to the service. His parents had no idea that their son was even gay.
23. Pain Relief
The father of a relative that married into my family passed. My father attended the funeral out of respect for our relative because the man who passed away was an absolute awful person. He abused his wife and controlled his children. He crippled the people in his family - seriously stunted their development. And he was a business owner known to be shady. He died estranged from his family.
At the funeral, many more people were there than my dad would have expected. The eulogy was very brief, factual. Then the pastor got up to speak, and his words made everyone's jaws hit the floor. He spoke about how the end of things sometimes could be healing. He told a story about how he'd had an unpleasant business deal with the man, how the church had been hurt, and how it had left him bitter for a long time, and that he'd had to pray for forgiveness when he felt relieved when the man had died.
As much love as they'd shown for the man, he knew there was pain there, too. He told them all it was ok to feel their feelings and release their hurt. My dad said that finally people began to cry and they were getting up and hugging each other while music played. There was no viewing line even though there was an open casket. People just sort of left, looking relieved. My dad thought it was a fitting send-off.
24. Parking Violation
My uncle is a funeral director and he asked if I could help out for a day. The church that the funeral was at only had on street parking. Halfway through reading the eulogy, a parking enforcement officer walks in and walked up to the stage. They took the mic as the speaker was finishing and told everyone they had to move their vehicles or they would be ticketed and towed.
25. Dirty Memory
A very loving, gentle man had passed away after a short battle with Alzheimer's and his rather large family are all in attendance at the burial. It was a simple funeral. And the burial was similarly quiet and dignified. As the casket was being lowered into the ground, there was a dull thudding sound echoing across the cemetery.
The man's obnoxious grandson who at seven years old should have known better was throwing clods of dirt onto the coffin as it went down. I still remember this clear as day after more than 15 years. Partly because it was such a disrespectful thing to do, but mostly because that grandson was me. To this day I have no idea why I did it, and the shame I feel about it is immense.
26. Swooping In
I was working a funeral/ burial service in Vermont and the next of kin decided to have doves released at the burial site (yes that's a thing). When they were released, a hawk flew out of nowhere and DESTROYED one of the doves. My co-worker and I had to usher ourselves to the hearse because we were laughing so hard.
27. All Hail Queen
My grandad had a cool funeral. He was a huge Queen (Freddie Mercury) fan so the hearse drivers played the Greatest Hits album all the way to the crematorium really loudly with the windows open. They were smiling and laughing all the way. They told us they'd had great time singing along. As the coffin went down at the end of the service, we played "Another One Bites the Dust." There was lots of laughter as people left. We all went back to the pub and everyone had a Bacardi and lemonade as their first drink which was my Grandad’s usual. Then we went back to my parents for one amazing party, dancing the night away to Freddie.
28. Hubba Bubba Pop
I saw a person sitting near the open casket at a wake, blowing large bubble gum bubbles and popping them - then chewing the bubble gum with open mouth before creating another loud bubble-pop.
29. Weedy Burial
Everyone was late for my gran's funeral. There was a meet up at a pub beforehand and because nobody had seen each other in years we all lost track of time. When I tell this story, people are always shocked but it is what she would have wanted. She lived to make people happy. She was buried with a bag of weed and everyone had to agree they wouldn't dig her up to get to the weed if they were desperate. Again, in my family circle this is very normal and funny but to others, maybe not.
Afterwards, everyone came back to my mum's house. One of my gran's lifelong friends (and village nutcase) got too drunk and started threatening people who didn't cry at the funeral with a smashed bottle. My mum told him to leave, then he just gave everyone at the house a hug, arranged to have drinks with people, said God bless and left. I was 8 years old and this was the norm. I love my family.
30. Shot at Death
My coworker’s aunt passed away and he chose me out of everyone in the office to attend the funeral. Everyone went around just kind of stating facts - how tall she was, how many acres of beet farm she had. It was weird. But it got worse. After his brother showed up late and parked his car halfway into the grave site, my coworker grabbed a shotgun, flung open the casket, and fired two rounds into it. I booked it out of there.
31. Every Precious Moment
I watched the funeral director stare at his watch at the side of the stage while the family of the 20-year-old decedent gave a tearful send off. At exactly the 30-minute mark, the funeral director cut off the deceased's brother in mid-sentence at the podium, and said, "You're out of time, it's time for you to go." And he switched off the microphone and hustled everyone (about 100 people) out of the mortuary. If anyone wants to know where they can have a memorial service this cold and scummy, have it done in Centralia, WA, the epicenter of all things cheap and scummy in the PNW.
32. Jumping In
At the short graveside service for my mother (we had a regular funeral earlier), the intent was that kids, grandkids, etc. would each place a rose on her casket, then the casket would be lowered into the ground. The rose part went as planned but the casket got stuck partway down. This is when the funeral went off the rails. Pretty soon there's one guy with a large board, cranking away at the end of the casket, while another fellow was jumping up and down on the top of with the family members cheering them on.
My wife yelled, "She just wanted one more guy to jump on her before she went!" When they finally got it down into the hole, we gave the gravediggers a standing ovation. It was like something from a Mel Brooks movie. My mom had a good sense of humor and would have found this abandonment of social standards quite amusing.
33. Cheeto Fingers
I went to my Grandma's funeral with my family (keep in mind I was 15 at the time) and it was a 4-hour drive. Being the snack loving 15-year-old I was, I had a lot of Cheetos and ate a lot before the funeral and since I kept eating, I couldn't wipe my hands, so I just put them in my pocket. At the end when we went up to the casket, I said a few words to my grandmother, but then I realized I grabbed her hands with mine. Now my grandma is dead with Cheeto hands.
34. Deathly Allergy
My neighbor worked at a funeral home. Part of her job was selling the coffins. One of her customers had inquired about the cushioning inside and she informed her of the material. The customer was concerned about this. When my neighbor asked why, she said that she was allergic to it. Oh honey. Have I got news for you.
35. Beggars Belief
When my grandmother died, my cousin showed up drunk and/or high to the funeral. She was wearing a see-through black top with a pink lace bra underneath and a very short black skirt. She spent the entire time before the service begging people for money ("Oh hi Aunt Ruth. Haven't seen you since I was a kid. Listen, I'm real short this month and could use a few hundred dollars. Grandma woulda wanted you to help me"). People tried to ignore her and a few suggested that she leave, but she refused.
During the service as the priest was talking, she was loudly talking at the back of the room trying to get money off of people. Eventually, my Uncle Jack walked over and dropped the mic. He said "You are an embarrassment," took her by the back of the neck and arm, and force-marched her out of the funeral home. A few years later, I heard the rest of the story.
Once outside, my cousin accused everyone who had gone outside with her of assaulting her and claimed that she was calling the police. They said go ahead so she called and about 10 minutes later a cruiser showed up. She had warrants in Montreal and Vancouver so she was arrested and taken away. I've never seen her since and I don't even know if she's alive.
36. Giggling Away
My sister and I were seated together in the front row at our father’s funeral. It was open casket. My uncle Al gets up to say a few words about my dad, Uncle Al is kind of a character, teller of tall tales and loves to hear himself talk. He's up there rambling away some tall tale loudly to the congregation as I lean over to my sister and whisper to her, "watch, dad's gonna reach up outta the casket with his hand behind Uncle Al and close the lid."
Well my sister starts giggling which makes me giggle. So here is my sister and me now trying to suppress our laughing; the more we try, the funnier it becomes and we are now wrestling to try to depress our laughter from the other funeral guests. I look around me, my aunt is staring daggers at my sister and me. Composure eventually ensued but we swear Dad would have done it if he could.
37. Have Your Wake and Eat It Too
The weirdest thing a funeral home director has done for me is actually make me a cake at my father’s funeral...which happened to fall on my birthday. It was a very kind gesture but I was so grief-stricken that for like a week afterward I genuinely thought it was something they did for everyone. Your loved one died? You get a cake!
38. Dealing with Denial
My dad is a funeral director. Our family owns a funeral home. He is the kindest, most professional man ever. Old ladies adore him. He looks a little bit like Tom Selleck circa Magnum PI. So, seeing a huge burly sobbing man who had just lost his son to a tragic automobile accident ATTACK my father screaming "he isn't dead, he's asleep!" was a bit upsetting.
This man cleared three rows of chairs and launched himself at my father. Luckily Dad is also a retired body builder, so he was able to hold his own without hurting the mourning attacker and still remain understanding and professional. He had done such an amazing job with the embalming that the father of the deceased man snapped and was convinced and insulted that my father put his sleeping son in a casket. Grief manifests in the craziest ways sometimes.
39. Teacher’s Pets
When I was in second grade, my teacher was a nun and an utterly miserable person. Corporal punishment was the norm in that class. One day at school, she wasn't there and we had a sub. Just before 2 pm., they line us up, the entire grade 2 class, and we walk several hundred yards up the road to this teacher’s house. As we enter her front door, she is at the door all aflutter, tearfully and animatedly telling each and every one of us how happy she is to see us there, how grateful she is for us to come by, etc., etc. The contrast in her demeanor was literally shocking. What is going on here?
Then we make a right turn into her den and there is a coffin and a bunch of flowers on stands and a kneeling thing right in front of it. Holy cow! Two by two we are walked up to this open casket holding the dead body of this teacher’s aged mother. We all kneel down in utter horror face to face with this dead body, and we proceed to do the sign of the cross, and pray as fast as we can to get the hell away from this completely unexpected vision of death.
Seven years old. What?? I still can't get that picture out of my head. I remember it like it was yesterday.
40. Hold My Teeth
When I was a kid, one of my aunts passed due to a pretty gruesome accident. At the wake, one of her sisters started a fight with the other sister, which included a full-on fist fight with hair pulling and denture removing to avoid damage (I was ushered into the lobby with the other kids the minute my one aunt took her teeth out). The poor funeral director could just stand there in complete and utter shock while the two duked it out, and all of us kids could see it even though we were in the lobby.
41. Bad Influencer
Former funeral director here: Girl that said she was an "Instagram model" kept taking a ton of pictures of every single thing and kept taking pictures of herself by the casket making pouty faces. A little boy at the funeral completely broke down when we were about to lower the casket and she wanted to stop and take a bunch of pictures with the kid. She was one of the grandchildren but I really wanted to kick her out. She was acting like it was a photoshoot.
42. By Electrocution
One time, a man ran into the funeral and told everyone that they are going to the underworld. He got thrown out and the power went out roughly 5 minutes later. Turns out he climbed the telephone pole out back and was swinging on the wires. He got electrocuted, fell 40 feet, and lived.
43. Cough It Out
At my wife's grandmother's funeral, my wife's aunt, who is one of the worst people I've ever met, goes into an insane coughing fit the second that someone started reading "The Lord's Prayer." It was really bad. They describe it as deep, visceral cough like she inhaled pepper spray, no way it was fake. They keep going with the prayer, and the second they stop, she stops coughing.
My wife and her dad look at each other like, "What just happened?"
44. Child Terror
At my aunt's visitation service her childhood friend, also the preacher chosen for her service, showed up to mingle. He brought his father and his youngest son with him. Cool, right? Wrong! His kid openly mocked us, the mourners, while running around the room like a feral child. Then he starts picking at the flowers people had sent destroying a few pink roses in the process. Then when his grandfather was near, he kept begging him for money! And the old bat gave it to him!
45. Inconsolable Blips
I've had the, uh, not "pleasure" but I guess the opportunity to go to a few funerals. At one, my grandma tried to jump into the casket with my grandpa while screaming to take her with him. At my dad's funeral, my mom broke down and punched out my uncle who was trying to console her. And at my mother-in-law's funeral, there was a horse head flower arrangement. The guy carrying it stumbled while moving it and I thought he was galloping. Almost cried I was laughing so hard.
46. Open Wide
I went to my great Aunt's funeral today. I've never been to a burial before, only ever cremations. She died a few weeks ago but it had been on the cards for a while, she'd just sort of stopped eating. She'd withered away to nothing. She'd just given up I think after my Great Uncle John had died. She used to be so full of life and such a funny character that in the end she just wasn't her any more.
The church service was really lovely with lots of singing and eulogies and a few funny anecdotes about her. Then the pall bearers came in and we followed them into the cemetery. It’s an old cemetery and Dorothy nearly didn't make it in as they said there wasn't room. When we explained to them (when organizing the funeral) how many of our relatives were buried there, they relented and said we could use one of the few remaining spaces.
Picture us following this coffin, through 2 inches of snow and mud all dressed in mourning attire, suits in shades of black and grey. We get to the grave. The hole is dug and the edges of the pit and the pile of soil are covered in one of those pretend grass carpet thingies. I guess the carpet is an attempt to make the hole look nicer, but it’s still just a hole.
We gather round and the undertaker hands each of the ladies a yellow rose from one of the bouquets, I take mine and hold my Granny's hand – Dorothy was her older sister. The Vicar lady recites a prayer as they begin to lower the coffin into the grave. I say begin because it only gets about half way before they realize it doesn't quite fit. A few relatives begin to giggle a little as quietly and respectfully as they can manage as the pall bearers' sort of jiggle the strap sort of jiggle the straps they are using to lower my Great Aunty Dorothy into her grave trying the shuffle the coffin in.
After a few minutes of this they lift the coffin up again and put it back on its supports. The head undertaker puts his hat on and begins to walk away. "Where's he going?" someone asks, "Maybe he's going to get a shovel?" says my Granny grinning. The pall bearers look very uncomfortable, trying to remain solemn as possible in the midst of people laughing saying that this was just like Dorothy and did anyone happened to have a spade handy?
One relative asks if we can put the coffin in sideways but my granny mentions that Great Uncle Johns ashes are in there and if we put the coffin in sideways he'll spill. My Uncle Russell starts looking under the green carpet over the pile of dirt to see if the grave digger has left the spade there for filling in the grave later. He has and a forklift too for good measure. The pall bearers continue to stand there with heads bowed occasionally sharing an uneasy look with one of their colleagues. I'm guessing this doesn't happen often.
A couple of minutes later, the undertaker returns with the gravedigger in tow. They try taking off the carpet from one of the sides of the hole to see if that'll help. After a few more minutes of shuffling and my Uncle Steve saying things like, "looks like Dorothy did manage to put some weight on in the end," it looks like it’s still not going to fit because the grave isn't wide enough. So, the poor grave digger grabs the spade and starts leaning into the grave to widen it. Eventually, he has to jump into the grave to widen it lower down.
So, there we are, 20 or so people in our best clothes standing in the mud and the snow, laughing at the absurdity of it all as we watch a poor man in a 6-foot hole digging a grave for our Aunty Dorothy. He's there for a while, digging away and people are telling stories, memories and anecdotes about funny things that Dorothy did when she was alive. Eventually, he jumps out of the hole and they start lowering the coffin, the Vicar resumes her prayer, and we all give a hearty cheer when Dorothy reaches the bottom. Everyone agreed that she'd find it all very amusing if she was watching. At least she's given us all one last memory of her to hang on to.
47. Scandalous Circus Funeral Service
I had a friend in high school who, unfortunately, died an awful death. She was eight months pregnant and out with a bad crowd. Someone was driving while drunk and they crashed into a lake. Everyone was so messed up that they ran out...and proceeded to leave my friend in the car. She never made it out and her body wasn't recovered for three days.
All to say, her funeral was obviously closed casket but for some reason, the unborn baby was taken out of her and then her family gave it an open casket service right next to my friend's closed casket. It was very strange and it honestly looked like a piece of mangled dried wood. I don't know why the family would want that, but I guess everyone grieves differently.
But what truly annoyed me was everyone's morbid curiosity about the fetus. So many people paid their respects to the fetus and completely forgot to pay their respects to our friend because her casket was closed. There was also the subject of her whole extended family (like 15 cousins) just talking and laughing nonstop during the service, some of her friends making out in the seats and feeling each other up, and notoriously the baby daddy arguing on the phone.
The funeral service was a complete circus due to being comprised of mainly 14-17-year-olds. I felt terribly bad for the adult family.
48. All Sliced Up About It
This is going to sound weird, and unbelievable, but I have to recount this tale. The family wanted a private moment with the deceased. We allowed it, and all our staff cleared out, alongside the pastor. Within about five minutes, we hear retching, and dry heaving, and we knock, and ask if everything's okay. But the retching doesn't stop.
So, the staff enters the room, and by God, I'll never forget what I saw. They were eating slices of the body – embalmed slices. God knows how toxic it was. The adults were arrested for desecration of a corpse. The children went into foster care. These were some sick people.
49. No Puppies Allowed
I went to the funeral for my friend’s four-year-old son. He died by strangulation on a faulty break away mini blind cord. After the funeral, her trashy friend came by and surprised her with a "gift." I've never been so horrified in my life. She got her a puppy...to replace her deceased child. Needless to say, she didn't want the dog. I ended up with a puppy that day.
50. Tit for Tact
A good girlfriend of mine passed away after taking her own life. She was cremated hours after her death at her husband's request. There was a short memorial service for her where she lived and one the following day for her family and friends where she is from (this is the one I attended). Her husband was there and his behaviour was utterly chilling.
He was smiling huge, laughing the whole entire time. He was loud and obnoxious, even wresting another man in the lobby of the funeral. I remember thinking how disrespectful he was and he was avoiding a lot of her family and friends. He got engaged to another woman two weeks after her funeral on what would have been their 3-year wedding anniversary. I really do think she may not have done it after all.
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