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Filch It Friday: Funerals

Inspired by Ruth, I’m filching from myself today because I’m on my way to a funeral in a couple of hours. Please send me your serious thoughts…

Further Reflection on Funerals

I don’t have a fear of my own funeral, which would be the likely interpretation of my phobia. I fear going to other people’s funerals. It’s not that I don’t respect the dead or that I’m incapable of feeling grief; it’s just that before I even get to the service I start to worry about my own habit of laughing at all the wrong moments and I have to work very hard to get myself in the spirit of the thing. I practice my long face. I transpose my own loved ones onto the deceased. I think of songs like Seasons in the Sun. I think about George W. Bush. I count the steps into the church, the rows to me seat, the tiles in my row, and the gold upholstery tacks in the kneeler.

And then I look up to see the lady two rows in front of me who has just a hint of her mostly black with little flowers Fashion Bug skirt caught in the cheeks of her ass, and my mind franticly scrambles to think of the pain of the closest loved ones, but instead I remember when I walked through a fancy restaurant in a beautiful flowing black dress with my hair falling in ringlets around my young face thinking I was incredibly hot shit, only to arrive at my family’s table and have my mother tell me the entire back of my dress was tucked into the top of my panty hose, and then I feel better because I’m laughing at myself which is really my favorite thing to laugh at, and my shoulders start to shake and the tears start to fall and I hope and pray everybody around me thinks I’m really broken up instead of merely laughing my ass off, and then I start to think of all the funny shaped heinies that make up the world; the wrinkled ones, the saggy ones, the tattooed ones, and the no-ass-at-all ones, and I picture them just falling off and rolling out from under mostly black with little flowers Fashion Bug skirts, and me having to step over them or step on them and I imagine the squish of heinie under my foot, and then I’m appropriately grossed out enough to pull myself together and get my convulsions under control and actually open my eyes and look up. In time to see the pimply-faced fourteen year old alter boy pick his nose and eat it standing right there next to the Virgin Mary statue at which point I just freaking give up and go running from the building!

So that’s really the root of that phobia.

Filch on!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 6:38 am and is filed under Filch It Friday. You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Comments so far

Kathy May 2nd, 2008 7:42 am

I’m filching The BOOK meme.

And Nutmeg…my first reaction to your post is…you have an unusual obsession with heinies.
coastrat May 2nd, 2008 7:47 am

Your visualizations of things at a funeral are amazing!
maggie, dammit May 2nd, 2008 7:55 am

Remind me not to invite you to my funeral.

Oh, who am I kidding, I’d prefer to have you there! Funerals could use more people like you.

By the way, have I mentioned yet that I love the new look? I love the new look.
The Domestic Goddess May 2nd, 2008 7:59 am

HAHAHAHA! I am sorry, but that is one of the funniest things I have ever read. And yet, this is what I think about at funerals. Except I never tucked my skirt into my pantyhose but I DID leave a trail of toilet paper on my shoe and I HAVE had my shirt fall down to my ankles.
DaDivaStreet May 2nd, 2008 9:09 am

Great humor! I think that funerals are a time to celebrate a life lived. Sure, I’m feeling the loss, but I’d rather think of the fun times because I’ll remember that about a person long after their gone. So, if I chuckle (quietly) at something that brings to mind a funny moment, it’s not disrespect. It’s just a reminder that life will go on & good moments will continue to happen.
Amy3 May 2nd, 2008 9:40 am

I am no help to you at all cause I thought this was hilarious good fun!
Cobwebs May 2nd, 2008 12:47 pm

I’m afraid I can’t send you any serious funeral thoughts; I have trouble taking them seriously myself. My will specifies that everyone attending my funeral will receive a T-shirt that says, “I went to [my name]’s funeral and all I got was this stupid T-shirt.”

Maybe you could stab yourself in the leg with a pencil or something?
Nutmeg May 2nd, 2008 1:22 pm

I am so filching the t-shirt idea, Cobwebs!
Lilypad Mom May 2nd, 2008 5:51 pm

I cannot make it through a funeral without laughing. I don’t even have such vivid images to make me laugh, I just can’t help myself. I think I try so hard not to cry that I go to far in the opposite direction.
nathan May 3rd, 2008 10:32 pm

oh you cutie. as i read cobweb’s post i thought “i am so stealing that” and then i read your post and had to laugh.
Hiney Biter May 5th, 2008 8:54 pm

Can I tell you about my fear of funerals? My own, to be exact?

My biggest fear is that no one will show, and that I will be the only one there, immovable in a casket, urn, or even in some kryogenic ice cube. But by myself.

It’s not only that I hope I can part this world knowing that I made some people feel loved. It’s not that I’m worried altogether that people I knew won’t remember me. My biggest fear is that I’ll be the last one. That everyone else will already have left.

It’s kind of like being at a great party, where you’re just loving talking to everyone, meeting new souls and wishing the party never ends. And then you realize you’ve overstayed and you’re the last one who has to go. Weird. I know. But it happens, and I’m usually dragged home by either my much better three fourths or a cab driver waiting for fare (I prefer the first option!)

At my funeral, I don’t want to be alone, I want the loves of my life - my American Woman, my Two-legged Terrorists, my friends, my life’s “work” - to all be there so I can watch them go on without me, yet at the same time with me.

In “real time”, while I’m still here (and I plan on being here for a long time to make sure I get my mancave carved in granite and my firepit lit with the eternal flame of solid fules), I guess I will still attend too many of these ceremonies of tragic comedy.

I just hope that it’s not for anyone who’s on my invitation list.

Nutmeg, thanks for your word and your humor.

-HB

Filch It Friday: Funerals

11 Comments so far

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