20 People Share The Most Awkward Things They’ve Witnessed At A Funeral
“Sorry for your loss” is a perfectly good thing to say at a funeral. Right after you say it, you can stop talking. Some folks use it as an opening line and keep on talking until they’ve given the family something else to be upset about.
Funerals are already uncomfortable enough without having to wonder what someone meant by their comments. And when something unintentionally funny happens, trying not to laugh becomes the only thing your brain wants to focus on.
These people over on Reddit shared the most awkward things they’ve witnessed at a funeral, and boy, oh boy, does it sure lighten the mood if you’re there as a guest.
Some are funny. Others make a strong case for saying less.
1.
“At my friend’s nan’s funeral, they played ‘Angels’ by Robbie Williams, but then forgot to stop the CD at the end of the track. The next track was ‘Let Me Entertain You.’ They caught it pretty quickly, but those first few bars were enough to send a wave of stifled laughter through the younger cohort of the congregation, which we never really recovered from.”
2.
“Several years ago, we went to our friend’s funeral service at the crematorium. We were running late, so we rushed in without realizing the crematorium had multiple funeral rooms. We sat down, looked up, and saw a Catholic priest getting ready to welcome everyone. I whispered to my friend, ‘I didn’t know Rod was Catholic.’ She said, ‘He’s not.’ That’s when I looked around and realized I couldn’t see any of our mates either. At this point, I thought, ‘Ah, for f*ck’s sake. We’re in the wrong funeral.’ Then the priest opened with, ‘Today, we are here to pay our final respects to our sister Elizabeth…’ By then, we were panicking, trying to figure out how the hell we were going to get out. We decided to leave as quietly as possible — until my friend tripped over someone’s handbag and went flying arse over elbow. We were absolutely mortified. 😳”
3.
“My grandad fell into the open grave of his ex-wife (my grandma) at her funeral as we were standing waiting for her coffin to be carried up to the grave.”
4.
“My great uncle loved the horses and hated being late. When he passed away, his hearse got held up because they had closed the road for a horse race. We couldn’t work out if he’d be pleased he got to be at one last race or pissed for literally being late to his own funeral.”
5.
“Not at a funeral, but I guess kinda related. As my dad was dying (literally within a minute or so before he went), he was starting to pause longer and longer in between breaths. He finally stopped for a good while, and we thought that was it. My mum said, ‘Go be with your mum and dad.’ Then he instantly started breathing again. He didn’t really like his parents. We both laughed.”
6.
“I know someone who was at a funeral and in the middle of the ceremony, somebody’s phone went off loudly. It was the theme song to The Walking Dead.”
7.
“A friend of mine went to the funeral of a distant relative of his spouse. He didn’t really know many people there, so he tried to make small talk, but it ended with an awkward silence, which he tried to fill with the first thing he could think of, which was ‘Well, this is fun.’ Nobody thought it was funny.”
8.
“At my best friend’s dad’s funeral, the wrong hearse showed up. We only realized because the flowers on top of the coffin were wrong. Luckily, the right hearse wasn’t far behind, but there was some awkwardness as the wrong one had to reverse out of the crematorium to give way to the right one.”
9.
“We were outside the chapel watching the hearse begin its journey to the grave. A woman collapsed near us, so they called an ambulance. The hearse decided to leave first, and the ambulance got stuck behind it on this one-way street with no way around it. So we all had to stand and watch as this hearse crawled down the street with this blue-lit ambulance crawling along behind it. Not gonna lie, it was quite the sight, and we did chuckle a little. The woman who collapsed is fine now.”
10.
“During the vicar talking, a grandparent let out a very loud, long fart, coughed, and pretended as if nothing happened. Everyone else also pretended like nothing happened, until the smell filled the room.”
11.
“A relative had a slightly unusual nickname, which the vicar kept saying. I didn’t even know it was her nickname before the funeral, but needless to say, I found the vicar going on about ‘Muff’ quite funny.”
12.
“My local church front door opens onto the town’s market square. A couple of months ago, there was a funeral, and just as the hearse pulled up, a busker (using a battery-powered amp and mic) started belting out ‘Wind Beneath My Wings.’ This didn’t go down well with anyone who stood outside the church, and especially one very loud mourner. The mourner walked over, bitch slaps the busker, and then dismantled the speaker with his foot. There was a round of applause.”
13.
“Some builders started some kind of outrageous jackhammer device whilst the funeral was in progress, and the vicar was visibly pissed off trying to shout over it. It continued through the song while we all just sat there awkwardly. We all laughed when we got outside, because what else can you do?”
14.
“At my mom’s funeral, my ex-brother-in-law interrupted the priest giving the service to inform us all that he had to go because he had to return a borrowed car to his friend. He said goodbye to everyone and just f*cked off.”
15.
“At my Granddad’s funeral, some 6-year-old family member spent the whole service chanting, ‘He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead!’ at the top of his lungs while running around, and nobody bothered to stop him.”
16.
“My sister lost her child when he was 6 days old. It was terribly tragic. We had a Muslim funeral, and one of her friends turned up late to the mosque. At the wake, he was telling the story and said he was late because he came through the ladies’ entrance. I responded with, ‘Not the first time you came in the lady’s entrance, hey?’ It was simultaneously my greatest and worst moment.”
17.
“Someone walked around asking the deceased’s closest family and friends if they had a spare charger for their phone.”
18.
“Not my story, but my mum’s. At her grandmother’s funeral, one of her cousins gestured to my grandfather and said, ‘Oh, he’ll be next.’ It upset my mum and my aunt so much that they didn’t speak to that cousin for over a decade.”
19.
“Someone said to the man who just lost his daughter, ‘Oh, chin up!!’ Everyone’s eyes went wide.”
20.
“I went to a funeral when I was 18 for a friend my age. I didn’t know many people there. I walked up the path to the church, where the hearse containing the coffin stood. There were four girls standing around the coffin, on Snapchat, photographing it and adding location filters. It was sickening.”