The Funeral

I never did write about the experience at my grandmother's funeral. So I'm going to now. First of all, let me say that my grandmother was a strict Catholic and her children...well...aren't. The last time my dad was at mass was when I graduated from ND, his next most recent mass was when he was married and prior to that when he was in Catholic school in the 8th grade.

So let's start off with the viewing. My grandmother didn't want a viewing, so it really pissed me off when they had one, but then it turned out not to be so bad. The priest came to lead saying the rosary and my dad, uncle and aunt basically just moved their lips and mumbled. There was this lady sitting by us who wasn't saying the words in the same rhythm as everyone else and was really loud. She kept throwing me off and at one point almost led to a spontaneous outburst of laughter.

The next day was the funeral. It was also Ash Wednesday. I got chosen to be a paul bearer or as I like to say paul bearette. And that wasn't to bad except when the guy from the mortuary kept yelling at us because we weren't facing the right direction. I was also the reader and basically had no idea what I was doing. We also got into an argument about how to pronounce Ecclesiastes and of course I was right. My dad, aunt and uncle were chosen to carry the gifts for communion and my uncle was like "Gifts? What gifts?". After they explained what they were talking about he responded "Oh, I was going to bring pie."

Then was little reception afterward and my dad asked "why there wasn't any meat." I explained that it's cause it is Ash Wednesday (keep in mind that I am not Catholic). They did however have salmon loaf and salmon mousse. Then when one lady was going around table to table offering everyone tuna noodle casserole my friend wanted to know why she was "trying to pimp out her casserole." My mom informed my friend that she would be going to hell.