Two Funerals in One Week = Chaos

What I Learned Attending Two Funerals in One Week:

Family got the call about the deaths pretty much less than ten minutes apart. My Great Uncle on my Mom’s side and my Uncle on my Dad’s side had passed away. Then we had to wait for the details to see if we could attend both funerals.

It really is true that we never see the whole family on either side unless we’re at a wedding or a funeral. That is the only good part about these things, you get to see family and meet relatives that you may have never met before.

Funeral #1 - the out of town funeral for my Great Uncle (about a two hour drive and a hotel stay.)

* In my defense I’ve never been to a visitation or rosary service before because my family’s not exactly religious.

- #1 thing I learned about myself, I find the whole open casket aspect of funerals pretty darn terrifying. I really like remembering the person from before aka not seeing them in the casket where it just looks like they’re sleeping.

- The back row or as close to the back as you can get of pews/benches is the way to go seat wise.

- #2 thing I learned - I knew most of the rosary thanks to shows like Supernatural where they perform exorcisms...

- Next Day at the Funeral - we walk in and the open casket that I was terrified of is now in the hallway instead of the main chapel… I hid behind my mom and probably whispered pretty loudly that I didn’t know those things were portable.

Funeral #2 - In town funeral for my Uncle.

- Got back in time to go home for about an hour or so and then to the visitation at the funeral home.

- Visitations are weird too, we were there for my Aunt, cousins, and Grandma. It’s a lot of sitting around waiting for people to show up all for two hours. The family handled everything very well.

- From both sides of the family though questionable humor abounds but it is great to see that everybody can still find humor in things even with so much sadness.

- Don’t know what I was expecting at the visitation it was just well kind of like a sad version of a graduation open house.

- Day of the funeral - everyone meeting at the funeral home and then to the cemetery.

- After the prayers and everything at the grave then came the awkwardness of nobody moving after the priest finished for a good five minutes or so. It was like a really sad game of chicken because I know that I sure wasn't going to be the first one to walk away and I'm pretty sure that everybody else was having the same thought.

- What really wrecked me at the funeral was the slide show of pictures at the end.

- # 3 thing I learned was that if you thought you'd seen the last of somebody then you're probably wrong. At the lunch afterward a guy who knew my Uncle and Dad in school walks up to me and says don't I know you from somewhere. I say I don't know. Later I told my parents where I knew him from (this serial killer looking guy, who my Dad confirmed has always been weird, is someone I met via speed dating at the library.) Let's just say that it was at least something funny to end the day with.