FUNeral Stories

There are many times, in my wonderful career as a Funeral Director, that I hear some pretty humorous things from families, phone calls, and funeral "oopses." And, since all has been so serious lately, I think I'll share to lighten the load:

For years, we (the funeral home), have accepted payments for burial insurance and pre-arranged funeral services, a fairly common practice within our industry. One day, a little lady came by our funeral home to make her payment and, as always, wanted to talk a bit. A lot of people think that we, as funeral home employees, want to hear about their health issues. This little lady told us that she was going to the eye doctor. When asked why, which you should never ask by the way, she simply said she had a bad case of Gonorrhea that she was needing to get checked. I nearly choked on my "funeral peppermint" when I heard this. Nobody had the guts to tell her that she meant Glaucoma, but I sure hope the eye doc got that problem corrected QUICKLY!

I was sitting in the back of our chapel one day, about to fall asleep from the long night I had worked the night before, when I was suddenly jolted awake by a man who was addressing the audience about his mama and the fact that one day he was going to go see her, "Down There!" He was a bit confused on which place mama was going, cause he kept saying that "one day, he'd be able to walk those streets of gold, arm-in-arm with his mama, DOWN THERE!" He never did figure out what he was saying to everyone. Needless to say, I had no problem staying awake the rest of the service.

Then there was the man who called one day and after our answer greeting, just started laughing and said he had the wrong number. He went on to say he was trying to call the Body Shop. Right number... wrong body.

There was then the time when we were at the grave of a young man who passed away from his long fight with an illness. The family had requested the song "Cry to Jesus" to be played and when it got to the part that said "Fly to Jesus" everyone had balloons that they were to release and watch float off into the wild blue yonder. Well, this could have and would have been beautiful except for the fact that the CD the family brought was scratched just BEFORE the "Fly to Jesus" portion of the song. If you know the song, you know this is a good 3 minutes into the song. I was the one in charge of playing the song. Everyone looked at me. When I tried to fast-forward to get it to skip the scratch, the song started over. One time, then the second time, and third. The music director from a local church, whom I'm close friends with, leaned over to me and whispered, "If it does it again, stop it and I'll fly to Jesus." I know he meant well and meant that he'd finish the song, but it just came out funny. Couldn't laugh though, we finished the song the third time through and everyone released their balloons. Note to self: Great thought, but double check the CD next time.

I drove the flower van one day for a funeral where we had to drive nearly to Scotland, TX for the graveside service. Being the "Flower Boy," it was my responsibility to make certain I marked the entrance for the cemetery, especially with it being "unfamiliar territory." The cemetery was set back off of the highway down in a valley, hard to see if you didn't know it was there. Well, that was a problem because the approaching procession of vehicles would have to turn at the bottom of the hill into on-coming traffic, of which, many trucks were traveling, thus, making it dangerous to turn into. Being the "seasoned" Funeral Assistant that I was at the time, I decided to go to the top of the hill and slow down traffic with my Suburbans flashing lights. Keep in mind that the "Normal" procedure is to lead the procession into the cemetery, marking the entrance of the cemetery. Well, I was perched, a top the hill, slowing traffic and warning of the approaching funeral procession, when I noticed that the funeral procession had just passed the entrance to the cemetery and was headed straight to me; "Normal Procedure." I quickly flailed my hands in the air, trying to tell them they were passing the entrance, to no avail. My dad, who was driving the lead car, noticed what had happened about a half a mile and 14 cars too late. He was "dead" even with me and gave me the funniest look. I quickly pointed down the hill, from whence he came and the whole funeral procession made a 'U'ie in the middle of Highway 281, limos, funeral coach, and all! Looking back, I'm sure the people, both in the procession AND sitting waiting for it to get out of the way, were probably thinking, "This Funeral Home don't have a CLUE!" Lesson Learned: If you're gonna be the smart guy trying something new, use your cell phone to let the lead driver know what's going on, and then, mark the entrance!

There was a man who called a few weeks back that was wanting pricing information for a cremation. I answered as the funeral director and asked how I could help him and he said, "Yeah, I need to know your price for a cremation AFTER death." It was one of those moments when I really wanted to say, "Well sir, it's definitely less expensive than BEFORE!"

I guess God puts these funny little incidents in our business to keep us in a good mood, cause Lord knows, it can get rough if we don't laugh every once in a while.


-approved by Farley Wells, SAD-CMDI who empathizes with the woman with eye problems. I'm not sure what he means by that.