Funny Funeral

The family I belong to was born from a long line of morticians. My brother told me that our cognomen, "Cappucini," my mother's maiden name, is actually the name of an order of monks that performs funerals. My cousin Mark is currently the head honcho at the local funeral home that used to be owned by his father.

My great uncle Alphonse, Red Cappucini, deceased, was a mortician for a long time in the bay area. My mother told me he started out as the only ambulance driver in contra costa county and then he moved his way up to pulling bodies from the delta. He's got quite a few interesting stories that he told me before he passed, but we'll save that for another blog. This one is about Red's funeral.

The funeral was funny, and Red would have wanted it that way. He was always a very cheerful guy, even when Mark got him a book of famous obituaries for his 90th birthday. I think that was the best thing he got that year. He looked it up and down and everybody quized him on what was displayed on certain peoples' death certificates. He was a great guy and never took himself too seriously.

Before the funeral began all of my old relatives filed in and filled the pews at the funeral home. My oldest relatives sat in the front. My grandmother and my great auntie Mary, her sister, sat right next to one another. We had to sit through a lot of moving speeches. My cousin Brian, my great uncle's grandson came up to delivery his eulogy of his grandfather. He began speaking about how Red used to give him everything he wanted as a kid, or some such thing that grandsons reflect about their grandfathers and my great aunt, confused as to who this young man speaking was, screamed as loud as she could into my grandmother's ear, "WHO'S THAT?!!!"

She said it so loud that everybody in the funeral home looked directly at them. Brian, a little startled, paused and then began speaking. My grandma said "THAT'S BRIAN!!!!!!!!" into auntie Mary's ear.

"WHO????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Auntie Mary inquired.

"THAT'S BRIAN!!!!" quoth grandma.

It's the only time in my life I went to a funeral and had a really good laugh. Everyone in the funeral home chuckled, because you're not supposed to just bust up laughing at a funeral. At the after party everybody had a really good laugh about that one.

This will only mean that I will give you more funny grandma stories. Trust me, there are a great deal more.