[Vikingdad]

Recent events have gotten me to thinking and C3's post on the joke thread prompted me to ask this question.

Most of us have been to a few funerals. The most awkward part in nearly every one I have been to has been when the people attending are asked to share their memories and few people do. I feel awkward because I do not take the time to think about what to say when that moment comes and nobody is standing up and speaking. This most recently happened just a couple of months ago and I was sitting there trying to get myself to stand up and speak but the words just would not come. I have resolved to not let that happen again.

So anyhow, one time when I did find the words was at my mother-in-law's funeral. Old Doris loved me like a son, up until her daughter chose to visit me rather than do some menial task for her not too very long after we had started dating. Now, I had been working for their family business for 10 years before my wife and I began dating, so there was some history there. But after that time when my wife came to visit me Doris started hating on me. I never let it get to me (and man-o-man I could tell you some hating mother-in-law stories!) and towards the end she sort of came out of it and started regretting things. At any rate, when the funeral director asked if anyone wanted to say anything I stood right up and said the following (condensed and paraphrased).

"When I was 13 I started working for the family and Doris treated me like a son. After a couple of years I would tend the business during the week when things were painfully slow. Sometimes we would get one customer in a day. Now Doris was known as a great cook, particularly in regards to baking and sweets. Doris knew I was bored and lonely on those days, so she would come by with hot chocolate chip cookies and a few Playboy magazines. She knew what a teenage boy liked. Food and girls, not in that particular order."

I like to think that what I said loosened things up, whether that is true or not, people opened up and spoke for quite some time.

OK, now what would you like to hear at your own funeral? My mother was horrified at what I said at my mother-in-law's funeral, yet Doris was laughing from above.

Maybe a better way for me to end this would be to ask everybody to think of what to say when that moment comes when you are at a funeral or memorial service. Don't say anything upsetting to anybody and don't be to long-winded. But do come up with something to say. It will help the survivors to know that their departed one was loved, was appreciated and did matter. Silence says the opposite.

[Mason609]

Well, when my day comes, I don't really know what I'd want to hear.

Honestly, though, if they just tell their fondest memory of me, I'll be happy with that. Though, it's not really something I want to think about, I've dealt with death enough... think of my end kinda sucks.

[AcidFlashGordon]

No friends or family. And there won't be one. My old arse will be tossed in a dewar and frozen. Member of the Alcor Foundation.

[c3shooter]

What would I like to hear?

"OMIGOD! He's breathing! Someone get a doctor over here!!!"

[LONGHAIR]

I been to a few outlaw-biker funerals and they put joints and small bottles of jack on the guys chest...By the time it was over it looked like a drug-store in the coffin...I guess the family keeps all the stuff ???...Wedding are something else to...Bikes lined-up and they walk down the middle of them just-like the movies ...and everybody is drinking at both funerals and weddings...Kinda crazy to see,only been to a few but I won't ever forget them.....

[winds-of-change]

What would I like them to say or what they are probably going to say?

[rigjumpr]

we told him that 21 year old would kill him but damn doesen't he look happy from the back graoud who's getting all of his guns?

[vincent]

My eulogy will be short and sweet...exactly like this...

YouTube

YouTube

[Trez]

Funeral?
I wanna be one of those old guys who wander out in the wilderness and are never seen again...

[BenLuby]

Originally Posted by c3shooter

What would I like to hear?

"OMIGOD! He's breathing! Someone get a doctor over here!!!"

That is great!!! I'd like to hear that too, but mine will be more like "line forms to the rear to pizz on his grave. Yes, we've verified three times he's dead. No, you can't shoot his body to make certain!"