Dead Serious

Just because someone has passed away doesn't mean that we have to be morose all the time. I'd like to share a few of the funeral week humor highlights.


Word Choice

• When DP found out that I was in Canada, he wrote me an email asking, "What brings you up to Canada in the dead of winter?" Perhaps he could have chosen better wording...

• When I was doing the funeral program, I asked my aunt what the deadline was. Again, there may have been a better way to phrase that...

• I did the program quickly and didn't have much of a chance to proof it. It was perfect except that my uncle was giving the euology, not the eulogy. This led to much discussion on exactly what a euology is, and what a euologist might do. We finally concluded that because most of the eulogy was in the first person (my uncle read exerpts from my grandma's personal history), a euology must be a first-person eulogy.

Phone Faux-Pas

• Although I didn't listen to my voice mail while I was in Canada, once I got home I listened to the messages that had accumulated while I was away. I received a message from Rice saying, "Cicada. I'm calling to tell you that you have been very lazy about your blog. I went online today expecting to be entertained, but only saw your old post about Dwight that I had already read. You need to be better about updating your blog. What could possibly be keeping you from maintaining it? Get back on the ball." Apparently immediately after calling me and leaving that message, she called El Senor and found out that I was in Canada for our grandma's funeral. Rice began to worry that maybe I'd be offended... Well, I was, Rice. Deeply hurt and offended. We're not talking anymore.

• As we were making funeral preparations, my mom called a ward member to ask if she could play the organ. Her five-year-old daughter answered the phone and before passing the phone to her mother, dutifully asked who was speaking. Without thinking, my mother said, "This is Sister [Last Name]." The little girl started gasping, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" She covered the mouthpiece and called to her mother, "Mom! It's Sister [Last Name]! She's ALIVE!" Then she said into the mouthpiece, "Sister [Last Name], I thought you were dead." My mother then had to explain to her that she was just the daughter-in-law and that Sister [Last Name] was, in fact, dead.