Wakes and Other Such Events

I don't know about you, but I hate funerals. My Great Aunt Marietta loved them and I'm pretty sure she'd go to funerals just for the heck of it. If she bumped into them at Walmart and managed to get a name, she'd show up at their funeral. I never understood it because I pretty much have to be dragged to funerals and wakes. Honestly, I think wakes are weirder that funerals because you have to walk up there and look at the dead person and I find that to be just a tad bit ghoulish. Maybe that's just me. Regardless of how odd it may be, over the years I've had to come up with some way to cope with sad events -and grief in general. Surprise... It's through finding something to laugh about.

For a while, this coping mechanism worked pretty well. I'd get dragged to funerals, I'd be polite, respectful, and appropriately solemn (depending on how well I knew the person and/or the family), and I'd be fine. I'd notice the pallbearer's toupee slipping and I'd smile inside. I'd see the elderly lady up front slowly doze off (and start to slip out of her seat) and I'd quietly snicker. All was well... until my grandmother passed away and I was forced to endure an ENTIRE wake and then a funeral the next day.

I'd been amusing myself at these functions for a year or two and now I was supposed to the grieving granddaughter. Awkward.

Thankfully, my uncle (who, like me, doesn't like funerals and can find the humor in any situation) and I ended up standing next to each other, so I wasn't alone in this. About halfway into the evening, Jim and I were starting to get a little bit hungry. It didn't help that that once people made it through the family line with their condolences, they immediately started trying to decide on pizza vs. barbeque for supper. I'm not sure how she knew, but at some point my best friend showed up  with a Kit Kat bar for me. Bless her soul. I was prepared to share it with Jim -since we were in this together- but when my cousin said that she was hungry, it presented a problem. As you candy-lovers know, Kit Kats are divided into 4 parts. When there are two people splitting one, it's fine... But three? While the three of us were quietly discussing how to ration our limited food supply, we didn't notice the fellow that came up beside Jim. At least not at first. I think it was the reek of alcohol that finally gave it away.

We looked up from our snack just in time to see some lady walk up to him, tears streaming down her face, and gently place her hand on his shoulder. "I am so, so sorry for your loss!"

For a moment, the man looked a little bit confused, but he soon teared up and nodded. "Thank you."

They both sniffled for a minute before she patted him on the shoulder and moved on down the line to my uncle. The tipsy fellow was still crying, which was awkward. My cousin and I just kept looking from him to each other because we'd never seen him before in our lives. The lady finished talking to my uncle and then moved on to me. It was then that I was forced to question how well she knew my family because she smiled and said that I looked "so much like my mother" and smiled at my cousin (she's about sixteen years older than me). Yeah. She also thought my uncle was my father and no matter how convoluted Southern relations can get, my cousin is not my mother and my uncle isn't my father.

I guess we just decided that it wasn't worth clarifying because that would just be embarrassing for everyone involved and if she didn't know us that well, it probably wouldn't matter anyway. Besides, the drunk fellow plotline was unfolding and that was proving to be interesting. Apparently, the majority of people who come to wakes don't really know the people they're visiting because this man got more kind words than I did in the five or so minutes before his wife (a rather... masculine... woman) showed up. I take it she'd been looking for him because she looked disturbed and little bit out of breath. We she spotted him, her face got all red and she yelled (in the middle of the funeral home) "EUGENE! What do you think you're doing up there?"

Upon hearing his name, Eugene looked around and then turned to  my uncle. "What am I doing?"

"I really don't know..." Jim replied.

"Well, I don't know either!" Eugene said stumbling off toward his wife. We all watched in amazement as she led him (rather forcefully, I might add) down the aisle and out the door.

"What in the world...?" I finally asked, looking up at Jim.

"That's just Eugene. He's always had a drinking problem."

Yeah... I'd say so.

As that little episode came to a close, I found myself struggling to hold it together because you don't want to burst out laughing at your grandmother's wake... It's just not in very good taste.