Tuesday, September 05, 2006

WEDDINGS OR FUNERALS

I don't know which of these I loathe the most. I don't even know where to start about today.

1. I don't think it's good form to use a photo that makes the deceased look as though she was nearly 100 even if she was. She would have hated that photo. I have (and so does he) a lovely one taken at her 90th birthday party surrounded by bouquets of flowers.

2. It's definitely not good form to photoshop one's fat self into the photo to make it look like a happy family.

3. It's not good form to give a speech as though it was a Toastmaster's meeting. Instead of just talking about his mother, he inserted a history lesson in between the important events of her life. That's because he didn't know as much as he should have about his mother.

4. When choosing flowers for the casket do not have purple irises with a few pink roses and bright purple paper ribbon sitting on top of a mustard yellow cloth. It should have been pink and white with touches of pale green because that's what she wanted but he didn't ask me.

5. Don't describe one's mother as a simple woman. No woman is simple except the drone he married. She was an intelligent, complex individual who put aside all her aspirations to look after a husband because that's what women did in the thirties. She loved the embroidery work we did because she used to do gold bullion embroidery, an exquisite and difficult art. She worked as a confidential secretary which is why she knew so much about philandering men.

6. Don't let the tacky missus get up and make up fairy tales about the wonderful Sunday lunches they had together because some other person used to go down for lunch on Mondays and get the real story.

7. Don't tell porkies to your ex-wife, she knows you too well but thanks for wearing the pure silk bow tie I gave you 10 years ago. It livened up the prison grey shirt no end.


Remember how my sister and I were waiting for the lightning/thunder? The day was sunny so we didn't get that but when he described his mother as a simple woman, something large and heavy crashed in the foyer. I tried to keep a straight face as my sister's going "She's heeeere!"

The food was good, the tea was nice and hot and Nellie Jean would have loved the sandwiches and the lemon curd tarts, her favourite but he wouldn't have known that.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like he didn't know his mum very well at all. Sad!

It sounds morbid, but I would pick funerals over weddings any day. I've never felt cathartic release from a wedding. But funerals, done well, done properly, have often brought me to a fuller understanding of the deceased and allowed me to grieve and get angry and then rejoice at all the wonderful times I spent with them when they were alive.

Link said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Link said...

Too many typos in the last comment. Wondered how the little trash can works.

Sad that he never knew his mother. But then he doesn't really KNOW anyone by the sounds. What a prig. Glad you made it through

Anonymous said...

Cringe..... Thats what I do when people get up and speak as though they were the best friend of the deceased. I think it's guilt......For not taking the time to know them when they were alive. Oh, And the chance for narcissists to get some attention! These people make me pity them!

Lord Sedgwick said...

"lemon curd tarts"

There's a seriously cheap shot going begging there, but I will resist.

"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can."

Yep, me and the Little Red Caboose done it! What will power! See, you can be a power for good Ms Coppertone.

"It's not good form to give a speech as though it was a Toastmaster's meeting."

Likewise it is not good form at a son's 21st to give a speech as if it were his fleshless job application/resume/CV. Especially if you have already erred by calling your son by your brother's name. Yep, relatives of the in-law variety are a strange brew.

Anonymous said...

Bless your heart, JT...you sent Nellie Jean on her way with love and friendship in her pocket. We should all be so lucky.

BwcaBrownie said...

Thanks for the 'she's heeere' laugh.
You know that however badly a funeral is arranged*, the true friends of the deceased see through it all to the humour and always think "She/he would haved LAUGHED to see this" (and maybe they do).

(*Go Away Please Funeral Directors have an open bar at all theirs.)

JahTeh said...

One day GE you'll be allowed to be married and I'll love weddings then. I planned my father's funeral and I will never forget my mother's face as she walked in alone, to the sound of the first song they ever danced to.

I was a bad girl though Link, Everyone went outside to see the funeral car go past but I was inside starting on the second lemon tart. I was hungry and I'd walked all the way there and they were the best I've ever tasted.

Zoe, I'm designated speaker for my mum and after that, I'm starting to put it together now.

Your Excellency, how gracious of you to resist temptation, now take the pointed stick out of your eye.

Janet, she'll go to the same little cemetary where my son is but my sister now has to stop kicking my F-I-L's grave since Nellie will be watching. I suppose I'll have to stop spitting on him as well. That'll take the fun out of a visit.

Brownie, RH will be on that comment like a fly on sticky paper.

By the time I go I'll only have blog friends so you'll invited to the biggest grogblog of all times. I will make an amendment to my will immediately.

R.H. said...

Well I don't like to let anyone down when they're expecting me to comment, so let's just say that Miss Brownie's final casket will be a wine casket. As she is in life so she'll be as a ghost. (At Dan Murphy's)

R.H. said...

Hello Miss Jahteh, well Heir Presumptive to the Throne of Australia Mr Mad King Geoff W has devised a plan to make us both millionaires. He is sending me to Alice Springs to buy up aboriginal paintings and then I'm to go to New York and sell them. -For a huge profit of course. This all came about due to His Highness wandering into an art gallery in the city and inquiring the average cost of an abo painting. Two thousand dollars, he was told. Wooh! That got him going. And he won't let go. No, well the determination of schizophrenia is a wonder to behold. And most entertaining.

Robbert!
(I'll send you a postcard)

JahTeh said...

Lotsaluck RH, you'll never get past the airport profiling.

R.H. said...

Getting to America shouldn't be a bother, I've done it before, and I'm less of a crim now than I was then. But anyway, this is no joke; he's definite, he wants me to do it.

Davoh said...

Funerals? Weddings? .. ah fuckit.. too many t cope with. snail pulls head in.