I remember I laughed so hard I cried. But my response was half appropriate, because I was at a funeral.

I went to a funeral the other day. Caught the wreath.

"You have a very rough way of expressing your tastes," said Mrs. Murray with a shiver, as they got into her carriage. "Do you know, I never could understand the humor of joking about funerals."

"That surprises me," said Mr. Dudley. "A good funeral needs a joke. If mine is not more amusing than my friends', I would rather not go to it."

I generally try to avoid funerals: they make me angry. I know the purpose of a funeral is to provide comfort and a sense of closure for the bereaved; and I agree, in principle, that this is generally a good thing. But the default package usually comes with a priest, and when they start driveling on about how Uncle Fred (who died aged sixty-two of a hideous brain tumor) is safe in the ever-loving arms of Jesus, the effect it has on me is not to make me love my creator: it’s to wish I could punch him in the face repeatedly.

...what has become my frequent prayer since I have had to face death -"Thy holy will, O Lord, not mine be done!"

What an incitation to hilarity, hearing the word goal while following a funeral procession!

"My funeral," the Blue Man said. "Look at the mourners. Some did not even know me well, yet they came. Why? Did you ever wonder? Why people gather when others die? Why people feel they should?
"It is because the human spirit knows, deep down, that all lives intersect. That death doesn't just take someone, it misses someone else, and in the small distance between being taken and being missed, lives are changed.
"You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
"It is why we are drawn to babies . . ." He turned to the mourners. "And to funerals.

I think I can understand El Serruchito’s dismay. Imagine troubling yourself to attend some infant’s funeral, only to find dashed your modest poetic hopes.

There is something irremediably sad at an atheist's funeral.

I am not advocating humor at a church gathering, or at a funeral, but I do believe Mormon Elders ought to rise to the occasion either by inspiration or the use of good common sense. Being your own dear self and acting or speaking natural is at least refreshing if not entertaining.

Any thing awful makes me laugh. I misbehaved once at a funeral.

I cried at the funeral. It wasn’t because I loved her, it was because I was there, in the front pew at the church, chopping onions.

"Pa said, "Won't you say a few words? Ain't none of our folks ever been buried without a few words."
Connie led Rose of Sharon to the graveside, she reluctant. "You got to," Connie said. "It ain't decent not to. It'll jus' be a little.
The firelight fell on the grouped people, showing their faces and their eyes, dwindling on their dark clothes.All the hats were off now. The light danced, jerking over the people.
Casy said, It'll be a short one." He bowed his head, and the others followed his lead. Casy said solemnly, "This here ol' man jus' lived a life an' just died out of it. I don't know whether he was good or bad, but that don't matter much. He was alive, an' that's what matters. An' now his dead, an' that don't matter. Heard a fella tell a poem one time, an' he says 'All that lives is holy.' Got to thinkin', an' purty soon it means more than the words says. An' I woundn' pray for a ol' fella that's dead. He's awright. He got a job to do, but it's all laid out for'im an' there's on'y one way to do it. But us, we got a job to do, an' they's a thousan' ways, an' we don' know which one to take. An' if I was to pray, it'd be for the folks that don' know which way to turn. Grampa here, he got the easy straight. An' now cover 'im up and let'im get to his work." He raised his head."

"Did you ever realize that funeral has the word
"fun" in it?"