Worst thing you have heard said at a funeral?

[yoopermom]

DH's niece (and husband) had their eighth child die during birthing. Obviously, funeral was a hysterical, sobbing mess for most people there.

We all knew that her doctor had told her that she needed to give her body a break, and not have another baby for at least two years. And, yet, the minister, during the eulogy, said, "And don't worry, God will bless you with a new baby very soon. In nine months we will be having a baptism."

I thought her grandfather (my FIL) was going to kill the man (and none of us would have blamed him).

On a lighter note, FIL's BF, a businessman all his life, who's phone never stopped going off, was buried with his phone ON in his casket. We could all hear it ringing throughout the ceremony and the burial itself. Even now, a few years later, you can still "call him" and get his voicemail.

Terri

 

[kanne323]

So I am very curious — is there something that is generally appropriate to say? Or is it personalized for each situation? I know I want to be comforting, but I don’t think I ever learned the best way...

There's no one perfect thing to say. There is nothing that will comfort all, and for some, words cannot comfort at that time. It's certainly not easy to know what to say! My recommendation is to keep it simple- "you and your family are in my thoughts" kind of thing. It definitely depends on the person and the situation. The guidance counselor could have said, "I'm thinking about you, if you want to talk, I'm available" or something like that (because C didn't like her, anything the counselor said would have come out wrong in her opinion, though- teens can be the roughest audience!) Some people don't care for, "I'm sorry for your loss," but it does convey the sentiment well for adults who understand what the phrase is used for. If you know the family situation (as opposed to the instances in this thread where the family had very different experiences with the deceased person than other funeral attendees), share a memory and use the person's name. Sometimes, (pre-pandemic) a gentle squeeze of the hand and eye contact is enough to let someone know you care, or a hug (but I'm a big proponent of asking first, especially when hugging kids, and not just going in for the hug!)

One of my grandmothers died at age 95. She was a teacher in a very, very small town, and the wake was a non-stop flow of people. I remember how touched my cousins, siblings, and I were when people would stop and share a story from when they were a student of hers, because they knew her in a different way. Obviously, this isn't great in every situation, as noted above in this thread, but it was comforting for us.

Thank you for This. I’m guilty of saying similar things. I will be more aware in the future

I didn't mean to lecture; just really wanted to point out that euphemisms can be confusing, especially for children. And what makes it harder is that everyone is different and responds so differently. Someone who is deeply religious may be comforted by the idea that their loved one is "with God now." The issue is with not knowing who is embracing their faith and finding support from it in grief and who is questioning their faith in a crisis. I want to reiterate that it's not easy and there is no "right" thing to say! Grief is uncomfortable and it can be really hard to be with it, whether it's your own or someone else's. I do think most adults understand that and realize that there's nothing to say to make them feel better or change the situation.

 

[theluckyrabbit]

Not said at the funeral because there wasn't one. My MIL prided herself on being an extremely difficult person. When she passed away, BIL decided there would be no service. "She has no friends and no one would come anyway."

On a lighter note, does anyone remember this commercial? Maybe not the worst thing said, but certainly inappropriate.

 

[Alicefan]

Er- it was me. It wasn't a bad thing, it was a loud thing. A little backstory. My aunt, after my Mom's viewing, wanted my Mom's shoes to keep (she's a weirdo like that.) So, years later at my Great-Uncle Charlie's viewing, we were sitting after going up to the casket to pay our respects and music was playing and people were talking. I decided to be funny to my aunt so I leaned across my sister to where she was sitting and said, loud enough to be heard over the noise but not too loud, "Hey, Uncle Charlie's wearing wingtips- you want 'em?"

Of course, as I spoke the noise died down for the service to begin, and in the sudden silence my words rang clear as a bell. I just couldn't reign in my voice in time. I died a thousand deaths and my sister almost passed out from trying not to be heard laughing.

Reece- I like your questions. They're interesting and fun to answer.

I just died laughing! lolol I needed that! I can totally picture it!"Wingtips" lmao!!!!

 

[Alicefan]

Oh gosh, I have a few. But most are funny. I'll start with the worst thing....other than some of my moms friends trying to suck up to me while going through the receiving line and handing me their phone numbers in order to get close to me so that they could try to date my dad. One of my moms friends grabbed me and hugged me and said, "She knows all your secrets now...Your screwed!" I've never shaken that notion lol.

At my cousins funeral, my mom was asked to sing and me and my sister are sitting with my dad, and my mom is sitting up in this boxed in area beside the preacher, surrounded by all of the big floral arrangements etc... Well my mom goes to raising and lowering the music stand in front of her to get it at whatever height she needed it but she seemed to be fiddling with it for a really long time and my dad leaned over and said, "Your mamma's going to knock over that stand and all them flowers." and that got me and my sister giggling to where we couldn't stop. (I'd love to know why things hit you funnier when you're in church?)

I was going to add a picture to go with this one but I figured I'd better just describe my Aunt Mary lol. Picture it...Sicily...My Aunt Mary is a tiny lady with very thin lips with bright red lipstick who is VERY country, gossips about everyone (along with all of my other aunts) never has anything positive to say and has great big teased up, Jiffy pop, church of God hair. Well she's standing at my cousins funeral with her daughter Sandy and another cousin. She starts saying to Sandy, "I wonder if his daughter is going to show up?" and Sandy said, "Shhh Mamma, you're talking too loud." and Aunt Mary continued on, "Well, she didn't show up to her daddy's funeral." and Sandy says, "MAMMA HUSH! People can hear you!" and Aunt Mary said, completely annoyed at being shushed, in her drawn out southern drawl, "Sandy Sheeey-it!" (yes that's a cus word lol) I thought I was going to die! It has since become a go-to phrase in my family when someone is aggravated, but not aggravated enough to not be funny lol

 

[Alicefan]

Thank you for This. I’m guilty of saying similar things. I will be more aware in the future

Don't feel guilty. Not everyone finds that offensive at all. Most of us are used to hearing that because in all honesty, what DO you say? No one knows. No one. And for the record, I totally believe that there IS a better place after this. At least I sure hope so because if this is all there is then I'm gonna be irked. So saying "they're in a better place" is meant to give hope of something better, free from pain and the nonsense of this world. It's not meant to give offense. If we start trying to monitor every single thing we say then there will be nothing left to say.

 

[KPeterso]

My parents and I attended the funeral for the father of one of our neighbors (couple + 4 kids (probably about 7, 4, almost 2, and 5 weeks)). We were particularly close to the neighbors and had met the wife's father many times. At the funeral, the wife's best friend was supposed to watch the 2 youngest kids and sit towards the back. But when the 2 year old saw her parents going to the front she wanted to be with them, so her friend put the car seat with the baby in it across the aisle from where my parents and I were sitting and headed to the front with the 2 year old and got stuck sitting up there. About halfway through the service, the baby woke up and started fussing a bit, so during a hymn, I slid across the aisle grabbed the carseat and brought him by us and held the baby the rest of the service. When we were leaving, the priest makes some comment to me about my baby since I was carrying the baby and carseat at that point. I was barely 20 and looked about 15 at the time. I stuttered and said, uh no, this baby is the newest grandson of the person he just did the service on. My parents were trying not to chuckle too much and the family was definitely amused.

 

[rigs32]

If the funeral is held in a church, I always hate when they use the opportunity to tell mourners they are going to hell if there do not share the officiant's religious beliefs.

 

[RUDisney]

If the funeral is held in a church, I always hate when they use the opportunity to tell mourners they are going to hell if there do not share the officiant's religious beliefs.

That's worse than telling us that my Gramma was going to spend years to centuries burning in purgatory.

 

[lifesavacation]

My husband's step-mother is a horrible person. She treated my husband and his brothers very poorly growing up. Dh's brother died in his early 30's and it was very unexpected. The funeral was a somber event. His step mom sat behind us in the pew and was laughing it up with someone. It was like her laughing was magnified X 100 in the church. My husband at some point had enough and turned around and told her to ****.

 

[KMarston]

My mother died suddenly in her fifties. Mom had a gazillion friends and my father was one of those very introverted engineers that you hide in the basement away from all customers, kindest man in the world but not a people person. I’m standing beside him the entire wake . We’re all devastated. A lady I didn’t know came running up to us, skipping a long line, and is urging us to please, gather everyone together and drive around the funeral home praying and she will rise. I’m trying to be nice and get her to move along, turning to the people behind her in line and she just got louder and louder begging us to get everyone on board. My father looks up and says out loud, not necessarily to the lady, please don’t do that..she’s going to be pissed at me, I gave her eyes away! I lost it. I was laughing and sobbing and making noises I’ve never heard before! People are like rushing over to help and I’m dying... telling them I’m fine. Luckily the lady disappeared in the midst of all that!

 

[lovesmurfs]

At my grandmother's funeral, my uncle (her son) brought his girlfriend. During the visitation she asked how much I spent on my purse. I think I looked at her weird and brushed her off, but oy. Not appropriate anywhere, especially from someone I only know casually.

 

[PaulaSB12]

my uncle came up behind me and asked me where my mum was. I think he was thinking he was talking to my niece as it was at my mums funeral

 

[Colleen27]

My brother died of an unintentional overdose a few years ago. My mom really waffled about having a funeral mass for him, because like a lot of older church ladies she worries a lot about the way old church ladies gossip and she's never been comfortable being honest about his battle with addiction. But ultimately she decided to have a mass, at the urging of her priest and largely out of concern for her two Catholic granddaughters who were both struggling with the loss. In the vestibule after the service, she and I overheard two of the church ladies from her knitting group speculating about whether "overdose" was a euphemism for "suicide". At my mother's insistence, I bit my tongue but I could have throttled both of the women who thought that was an acceptable conversation to have in public in that moment.

Another one that stands out, though I don't remember the context as well, was my FIL's brother making some offhand comment to him about DD19 at a funeral in the family. I think it was for their oldest sister, who was such a Disney fan that her daughters arranged to have Disney Parks plush Mickeys holding vases of flowers as the centerpieces of the funeral luncheon, then sent a Mickey home with each of the kids in the family. Anyway, FIL's brother saw fit to pick that moment to comment about DD, who was a toddler at the time and had a tendency to hang on her Papa when confronted by large crowds and/or strangers, by saying to FIL "She's not even your real grandchild". FIL raised DH from the time he was a preschooler but DH's absentee bio father blocked a legal adoption, so technically there's no biological or legal connection between them. It was years before FIL spoke to his brother again after that.

 

[Mortlives]

Trigger warning: My late husband died by his own hand. If I had a nickel for every time someone tried to console me by telling me to "hang in there"...

 

[Boopuff]

My SIL died from a potential accidental overdose (she'd had a boob job and was on pain killers forever after the surgery) at her funeral (she was a huge country music fan - I'm not at all) they played "Jesus Take the Wheel" I've never heard that song and just standing there, listening to the lyrics - for some reason I found it incredibly funny - in my attempt to muffle my laugh, it came out as a snort, my adult DD grabbed my hand and she also got struck by the funny... I grabbed a tissue to make it look like I was sobbing...

 

[prairie_girl]

Some background information- I provide psychosocial care to children with cancer and their families, from pre-diagnosis through long term follow up or end-of-life care and bereavement. I attend way too many funerals. I also chose to study death; my MS is in thanatology, the study of death & dying. So I'm fairly well-versed in the topic (as much as one can even be, as we really only know so much about it.)

My father's cousin died due to a brain tumor. During her treatment, I spent a lot of time with her teenage children, providing support and just being someone who was present for them. I knew that the youngest one (15 at the time) didn't like her school guidance counselor, but we never really talked about why. At the wake, the guidance counselor came up to the two of us and said something about her mother being in a better place and how she had to be strong for her father (so two huge no-no euphemisms for me in one sentence.) The teen's eyes got wide and her mouth dropped open and she took off, and I couldn't help myself. I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was something like, "I know you mean well, but for us, and especially for C and her siblings and father, her mom is NOT in a better place, as she's not here with us who love her dearly, and please don't perpetuate the being strong thing, as tears are not weakness and grief is something that shouldn't be placed in a box and ignored." Then I went after C, who was ranting and raving about the better place comment, as I knew she'd be. We've discussed it since then, and she does understand that the guidance counselor didn't know what to say and meant well, but it still fires her up years later.

I run into this all of the time with my work, as I also provide consults to adult units for situations where parents or grandparents don't know how to explain illness or death to the children or grandchildren of the patient. A common phrase is "sleeping with Jesus" or "sleeping forever" and that is SO confusing to a child. It may sound peaceful to adults, but to children- especially preschoolers- it can trigger a huge, serious fear of sleeping and of loved ones sleeping. "Better place, "God needed him/her more," etc. are all so confusing and can be traumatic for children to hear, and yet are so often said because people truly do not know what to say.

I’ve always thought it must be so confusing and scary for a child to hear a pet was ‘put to sleep’.

 

[kanne323]

I’ve always thought it must be so confusing and scary for a child to hear a pet was ‘put to sleep’.

It is, and then there's even more confusion when a child who experienced having a pet put to sleep comes to the hospital for surgery, and the surgeon tells the child he'll be "put to sleep" for the procedure. It's probably the most common "misconception phrases" we deal with in pediatrics.

 

[prairie_girl]

It is, and then there's even more confusion when a child who experienced having a pet put to sleep comes to the hospital for surgery, and the surgeon tells the child he'll be "put to sleep" for the procedure. It's probably the most common "misconception phrases" we deal with in pediatrics.

I hadn’t even thought of that connection.

 

[ronandannette]

My SIL died from a potential accidental overdose (she'd had a boob job and was on pain killers forever after the surgery) at her funeral (she was a huge country music fan - I'm not at all) they played "Jesus Take the Wheel" I've never heard that song and just standing there, listening to the lyrics - for some reason I found it incredibly funny - in my attempt to muffle my laugh, it came out as a snort, my adult DD grabbed my hand and she also got struck by the funny... I grabbed a tissue to make it look like I was sobbing...

Nice save. Personally, most of the funerals I've ever been to have lots of people intermittently laughing and crying; what you did wouldn't have been a problem.