funny funeral moments

[Sparx]

I'm the world's worst to laugh at a funeral. I blame it on the stress of the whole event and I just have to let it out some how. I usually get everyone else laughing too.

alot of times we'll laugh about something the person said or did that was funny.

You can only let so much out by crying. Tears let out alot of emotion that crying can't touch.

I don't think its rude or distasteful at all. when I die I want my funeral to be about my life. not about my death. Because thats such a small part of it. I want there to be happy music and I want people to think about me and laugh, not cry. Liek my best friend will have a million stories of things I've done and everyone'll be laughing, just like they are now.

 

[JVL1018]

Oh I have one!

My MIL died suddenly(totally unexpected) in October of 1999.
To make it even worse I was 9 months pregnant with our first child.
So it was a very sad crazy time, hoping I wouldn't go into labor, excited about the baby, sad about mom etc..

So there we were in the limo leaving the cemetary when the driver goes down one of those narrow street in the cemetary-wrong turn, there was no way out..and instead of backing out, he tries to do a 3 point turn..in a stretch limo, on a street probably only 5 feet wider than the car.
It turned into like a 25 point turn going back and forth a foot at a time.

All I could think of was Austin Powers doing the same thing in his little cart in the movie...and me being me burst into totally inappropriate laughter.
I was laughing so hard I was crying-it STILL cracks me up thinking of everyone's head jerking back and forth back and forth..

 

[anewvance]

When my dh grandmother died 5 years ago, my oldest dd was about a year and a half. During the funeral, everytime a song was sung and finished, my daughter would clap and yell YEAAAAAA.... really lightened things up for everyone. It was an open casket service and she kept waving saying "hi mamua hi mamua". They audio taped the service and it's so cute you can hear it on the tape.

 

[anut4disney]

I never thought that funerals would make me laugh until I cried.

 

[Jakesmom504]

I think laughing at funerals is quite common. The funniest story I have is when we were at my Grandfather's funeral and all of the cousins busted out laughing because I brought up the story about when we were little and at their beach house and my Grandfather used to get so upset when we would come back from the beach and walk on the grass...yes the grass...so after the 100th time of him yelling at us for this, he came outside with the vacuum and vacummed the grass! No, I am not kidding! Needless to say we were rolling in the middle of the funeral!

 

[barkley]

when my dad passed away neighbors and friends brought tons of food over to my mom's house-and the bulk of it was buckets of kentucky fried chicken (kfc). years later a friend's mom passes away and the neighbors/friends bring over tons of food-mostly kfc.

so now when he and talk about going out for something to eat we refer to kfc as "kentucky funeral chow".

 

[stinkerbelle]

My great uncle Paul died a couple of years ago. We were not particularly close, but it was expected that my sisters and I would go to the funeral. It was a full Catholic mass in a very old church that had marble floors. Well, at a certain point in the mass, we were supposed to kneel. My sister forgot to put the kneeler down and her knees hit the floor, with this horrifying 3 Stooges coconut sound. She was startled and said "what the hell!!" where upon I started laughing softly. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and noticed she was laughing as well. At that point, I was out of control and as hard as I tried, I could not get a grip. The two of us were shaking uncontrollably. The woman behind us thought we were crying and put her arms around us saying "there, there, Paul wouldn't want you to be sad.". That made us laugh even harder. My sister then snorted and I totally lost it! I had to leave the church in humiliation.

omg


that's so classic!

at my grandmother's funeral, we were at the mass and asked to kneel...someone let the kneeler down a little hard and a huge BANG ripped through the church. I immediately looked over at my brother in the pew across from me...and we both crack smiles...

My mom used to hit my brother upside the head when he was little and would "drop the kneeler" too loudly during mass.

also...
during the funeral procession from the church to the cemetary, I was driving with my cousin. Some idiot cuts us off...so I honk at him and both my cousin and I tell him he's "#1". (just as grandma would have done...)

well, my brother, who was in the pallbearer limo, later tells me he heard a horn honk...and immediately said "that's either Christine (mom) or my sister...." heheh

 

[BunsenH]

A small story.

When my uncle's funeral procession arrived at the gravesite, it was obvious that the cemetary dug the hole at the wrong grave. They had it at his brother's site nearby. My uncle would have enjoyed the error as he was quite the prankster. The ceremony proceeded at the correct site and the holes were swapped after everyone left.

 

[4greatboys]

LOL these are so funny.

 

[ripvanwinkle]

A woman from New York was getting her affairs in order. She wrote her will and made her final arrangements. As part of these arrangements, she met with her Rabbi to talk about what type of funeral service she wanted. She told her Rabbi she had two final requests.
First, she wanted to be cremated, and second, she wanted her ashes scattered over Bloomindgales.

"Bloomingdales!" the Rabbi said. "Why Bloomingdales?"

"That way, I know my daughters will visit me at least twice a week."

 

[figment52]

I never thought that funerals would make me laugh until I cried.

I remember when I first saw the "Chuckles the Clown" episode on Mary Tyler Moore Show. I was more like Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) apalled that anyone could laugh when someone had died. Then I got really ticked when at the funeral she started cracking up. It was years before I could relate to the episode.

I have come to believe that remembering the good, happy and funny times surrounding someones life can be good medicine at a funeral/wake, even if it is a few years later before we fully appreciate it.

Keep these coming

 

[figment52]

Mt father had POA for his aunt and was executor of her estate. He had some health issues as well so I was named as an alternate. Unfortunately he pre-deceaced her so all responsibilities came to me.

I was doing some pre-arranging for her funeral as I was going out of town and didn't want to have everything on hold until I returned. You can imagine my reaction when the first instruction was "no open casket unless I still have my good looks". The woman was in her 90's at that point. And under no circumstances could her age be posted in the obituary notice. We found out why later - she lied to her husband about her age since she was older that him. She even had the headstone pre-engraved with the wrong birthdate.

She passed five years later and at the funeral home the number one question was - so how old is Aunt Mary? Even her old boss showed up and that was the first querstion he asked the family. We resepcted her wishes and didn't say anything but I am sure when Ii get to the after life I'll get chewed out becasue in the thank you note I told her boss how old she was. And I can't remember if we had the casket open or not, it was too long ago now.

 

[Tink's Pixieduster]

My story is not so much funny, but sweet.

My Mom passed away almost two years ago. Her passing was very hard on me, my sons, my brother and sister because it had been unexpected. We had lost our father only three years earlier, almost to the day.

I am still on very good terms with my former SIL and her husband. They came to the funeral and went to the cemetery with us.

Walking away from the gravesite following the internment service, a large flock of geese flew overhead. My former SIL's hubby watched the geese flying and then said to me, "Look! God is giving your Mom a flyover!" (Mom had been a civilian Defense Dept. employee for almost 30 years)

Former SIL's hubby made me smile. God bless him for that.

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

So there we were in the limo leaving the cemetary when the driver goes down one of those narrow street in the cemetary-wrong turn, there was no way out..and instead of backing out, he tries to do a 3 point turn..in a stretch limo, on a street probably only 5 feet wider than the car.
It turned into like a 25 point turn going back and forth a foot at a time.

All I could think of was Austin Powers doing the same thing in his little cart in the movie...and me being me burst into totally inappropriate laughter.
I was laughing so hard I was crying-it STILL cracks me up thinking of everyone's head jerking back and forth back and forth..

That is a great story!!! I would have been laughing hysterically.

 

[barkley]

for those with the midguided funeral processions-

my brother worked at a mcdonalds and one morning they see a HUGE line of cars pull into the parking lot and up to the drive through area-the manager starts yelling to the staff to start thowing huge amounts of burgers on the grill in anticipation of the impending crush of orders-it ended up being one car that had pulled in to get a cup of water, and all of the rest of the funeral procession had followed along right through the drive up line

 

[TLinden16]

When my uncle passed away, at his viewing, his nose started running. Most people didn't notice it, but I happened to be standing near the casket talking to my aunt, and her son-in-law. I quietly told my aunt that Uncle Bill's nose was running. Her son-in-law got the funeral director, and he wiped the discharge with a tissue. The son-in-law said, "I knew he would try to come back."

This wasn't at the funeral, but when my mom was in her final hours, my siblings and I were up at the hospital to say our final goodbyes. My niece and nephew were at home with their dad. They knew that Nana was sick, and they sensed that something serious was going on when mom wasn't home when they got home from school. They kept on bugging their father to see what was wrong with Nana, but my sister and brother-in-law agreed to wait until my sister got home to talk to the kids.

Finally, my nephew, who was eight at the time, said to his dad, "You know something about Nana and aren't telling us. We have a right to know what's going on. We're more related to her than you are. We have the same DNA."

 

[D L and K's Mom]

I agree with having a Celebration of Life . My FIL died quite suddenly (plane crash) and when my DH and my SIL were starting to plan the service etc..they looked at one another and both sort of said....this is not DAD. We had a nice service. My daughter picked the music she was 5 at the time and we had Puff the Magic Dragon and Eidelweiss as these were the songs Grandpa had alwasy sung to her. The service was so beautiful. After the service we had a PARTY. We rented a partyhouse and had a great paryt to celebrate Dad's life and all the wonderful memories he had given us. People took turns standing up and telling stories about Dad during dinner. It was so nice to hear some of the stories of when he was younger etc. We asked eveyone to bring a photo of Dad and we got so reallly funny ones. We put all these into a book with the stories underneath them and we have this for my daughter so she can remember Grandpa and learn about him when he was "young" . When the party was done DD released a big bunch of balloons with a note she had written to Grandpa and said,"bye Grandpa we love you". It was beautiful and most of the tears shed were tears of laughter. Later we had a nice , small gathering at the cemetary for the family.

 

[Nancy]

I remember when I first saw the "Chuckles the Clown" episode on Mary Tyler Moore Show. I was more like Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore) apalled that anyone could laugh when someone had died. Then I got really ticked when at the funeral she started cracking up. It was years before I could relate to the episode.

I love that episode. A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants!

 

[Tigger&Belle]

My FIL passed away in November. He was a lovely man with a terrific sense of humor. At the reception after the funeral we started telling "Pop" stories to each other and within minutes we were all laughing so hard that we had tears in our eyes (not the sad kind).

Anyway, some random woman outside (who wasn't at the funeral) wandered up to the window and with hands framing her eyes, to shield the sun, leaned on the glass to look in at us. Well, she was there for a while, so I offered $5 to anyone who would go up to the glass (from the inside) and kiss the woman on the "mouth". (through the glass) My niece's 18 y/o boyfriend said, "I'll do it!" and he did. The woman jumped back about three feet and turned around and got out of there! We laughed hysterically for a LONG time. When I gave the boyfriend his $5 he asked me who that woman was. I told him I didn't know and he blushed beet red. He told me that the reason he did it was because he thought I knew her!" We laughed for another 30 minutes!

I'm laughing so hard I'm crying! Too funny!

 

[ElizaB39]

When my DH's grandmother died, his grandmother's sister (great aunt Mary) whipped out her comb at the viewing and said (loudly for all to hear), "that's not how she wore her hair!" She proceeded to comb away. SIL thinks she wiped off some of the lipstick too...