Funeral drama - when grief meets idiots (long so will be multi-parter)

[Fudgethatkay]

But then again, there was my coworker who responded to my grief with "some people should learn to leave their problems at home."

While the OP's incident also got me mad...

THIS is what got me.

You lost your son. That's not a home problem. You can't just get over it for work. That is WAY too profound to expect and if I were you, my snip would be;

"And some people should learn to keep their inner ugliness at home too"

[Crossbow]

I'm so sorry for your loss, Cookie. You and your family are in my thoughts.

After this, I now understand why my friend hired asked my best man and myself to be security guards at her wedding. She had asked the previous pastor for her church to officiate and told the current (at the time) one that he wasn't welcome. Our job was to ensure that he remembered he wasn't welcome. (We had to deal with a few other issues, but the pastor was our main concern.) Either his memory was good, or the sight of two large gentlemen in dark suits and ear-mics jogged his memory.

"And some people should learn to keep their inner ugliness at home too"

You're a lot more polite than I would have been.

[Fudgethatkay]

You're a lot more polite than I would have been.

What I want to say and do is fratching territory. That's why I chose the calm version

[Cookie]

Captain Trips, I'm so sorry. That's so completely uncalled for. Loss affects work. I can't even imagine the loss of a child.


Part 3:


So, Pastor Jackass and his wife...

Her piano playing is mediocre at best. She plays out of lower intermediate level student piano books and charges for it. She did the same thing at my wedding. She doesn't even play that WELL out of them. As someone who taught piano, that irritates me. Maybe it shouldn't. After her antics at my wedding, I turned to ice when I saw her. She showed up in a bright white dress and a blazing blue jacket. That offended me. Maybe it wouldn't have so much if it wasn't her. She tried to hug me and I went so stiff. I semi-hugged back, but my arms only went to her elbows.

Her husband was every bit as lethargic as he was at the wedding. Seriously, somebody needs to wake this guy up. He's charging enough to be there, he can at least act like he's not on Nyquil. He droned on and on and on and...

My grandma leaned over to me and whispered that she wished he'd shut up. Love my grandma. I understand sharing a few verses, but a 24 verse passage followed by a 6 verse passage followed by massive amounts of completely irrelevant commentary? Zzzzz...

He opened up the mic for people to say things about my great grandma. A friend my grandma had asked to speak got up. She was soooo nervous as it was. The mic at the podium wasn't on, though, and we couldn't hear her. Rather than quietly handing her a live mic, though, the pastor's wife busts out with "PAUSE BUTTON! WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Pastor: It's on.
Wife: No, it isn't, we can't hear her!
Pastor: It's on.
Wife: No, it isn't. Here, take this one.

Ok, there was a discreet way to handle that and yes she was right that we couldn't here, but that was so way out of line.

After our friend was done speaking, rather than leaving the mic open, the pastor hurried up to carry on with the service and then caught himself to ask if anyone else wanted to speak. Yes, I did, so he reluctantly gave up the podium. After me, he hurried up again. Oh, now he's awake. No one else got up. Maybe they would have if he hadn't been so ridiculous about it.

Then he drones on and on and...

Oh shit. He had our attention all of a sudden and not in a good way. Somehow or another he thought it was appropriate to stand behind the pulpit at this funeral and talk about how his father committed suicide and how he and his mother found the body. I couldn't believe it. I was in FAR too much shock to do anything about it. We were just stunned. How is that REMOTELY applicable or appropriate???

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Yup. At that point I would've gotten up and forcibly removed him from the podium. I may look slight but I got a lot of leg strength and if I had to I would've disconnected the mic and told him to get the hell out, that this wasn't about him, and he shouldn't be a fucking attention hog-licker.

I can't believe that, I just can't. How did the elder pastor react? Was he just shocked, or did he do anything? BLAGH!

[Cookie]

Nobody did anything. Honestly, we were all too stunned. I don't know about how the elder pastor responded. I didn't even think to look at him.

[rose_metal_nz]

That's horrific. Please understand I don't mean to cause any further stress, but is there a higher authority (no jokes intended ) you can complain to? That's.. just horrific. I'm so angry on your behalf. If not, a similar thing happened over here & they complained to the media, so maybe that?
They should be held accountable for such a botch-up of a terrible time for you as it is.

[XCashier]

Nobody did anything. Honestly, we were all too stunned. I don't know about how the elder pastor responded. I didn't even think to look at him.

Understandable. Normal, decent people are generally caught flat-footed and have no idea what to do when someone who should know better starts being an boor. We see it at work all the time, but you'd think they'd pull their heads out of their kiesters and behave at a funeral.

This story is just getting more and more bizarre. I hope the bad pastor and his obnoxious wife get their comeuppance somehow.

[Lovecats]

While the OP's incident also got me mad...

THIS is what got me.

You lost your son. That's not a home problem. You can't just get over it for work. That is WAY too profound to expect and if I were you, my snip would be;

"And some people should learn to keep their inner ugliness at home too"

When my father-in-law died back in 2008 after I got back to work our hr manager gave me a hug and just told me that if I needed to get off the register just to let them know and someone would relieve me.

[Cookie]

Part 4:

The memorial service was over, the family went on to the fellowship hall and the rest came behind us in a line to come by and offer their condolences. I couldn't help but think as I stood there in a black dress of how the last time I was in that church I stood in a white dress receiving congratulations from many of the same people.

Of course, megabitch from the apartments that was so mean to my great grandma had to come through the line. She waited until someone was giving my grandma a hug and used the opportunity to jet around the line into the fellowship hall. Whatever. Nobody wanted her fake sympathy.

Most people were pretty amazing. There were a lot of friends there to support grandma. Many of them had businesses that they closed to be there for her and couldn't stay for the luncheon because they had to go back to their businesses. It was about being a friend, not about a free lunch.

Pastor and Mrs. Jackass stayed at ate. Just lovely. They charged to be there and ate the free lunch. They didn't sit near us, though, so I mostly didn't care. At least, not until they decided they'd stayed long enough and wanted to leave. That's when he slipped up behind my grandma while she was talking with friends and dropped this gem:

"Not to sound mercenary, but you have a check for me?"

What. The. Fuck. I was behind and heard the whole thing. At this point, I was not in stunned silence mode, but ready to go off on him. I could tell by my grandmother's face, though, that she didn't want a scene so I refrained. It was hard, though. Oh, so hard.

I have no comeuppance story to tell. I tried to find his email address since I knew he had given it to me before the wedding and told us to stay in touch. Yeah, right. I don't still have it. I was soooo going to give it to him over email. We did find his Linked In profile. I'm might see if I can send a message through that.

My great aunt is still a member of the church, but doesn't really attend because of this guy. It's the same story for a lot of members, actually. She's already talked to one of the deacons about what happened. Hopefully, they kick him out on his arse.

Bitchy from the apartments had one more for us after all of this. It got back around to us that when someone mentioned how grandma was taking it really hard, she barked back, "Well, I don't know why! Every day she'd come home from the nursing home and say how crabby her mother was."

That was a fucking lie. Grandma said no such thing. Even if my great grandma had been in a bad mood, she would have NEVER said so in front of Bitchy. Even if it HAD been true, it doesn't mean she wouldn't grieve over her mother's death.

Bitchy has her comeuppance. She's miserable, nobody likes her, and is mostly left alone with her own attitude for punishment.

That's all the sightings from this. I'll come back tomorrow and wrap it up with our antics at the cemetery. Yes, antics. My great grandma would have laughed so hard had she seen us. I believe she did see us, actually, and had a good laugh.

[RealUnimportant]

Oh good grief... Words cannot express how this guy has made me feel. He's the kind of guy that causes the creation of stereotypes.

I admire your restraint, and identify with the stunned silence bits... It's well & good to say what one might do in that situation, but when it's actually happening and you can't believe it, it's hard to react at all!

Certainly reporting him to the appropriate superiors seems to be the best course of action, and it sounds like that's been done so at the moment I'd refrain from having a bitchfest over email or LinkedIn; I doubt he'd properly understand, and it might even come back to haunt you.

[eltf177]

Part 4:

Pastor and Mrs. Jackass stayed at ate. Just lovely. They charged to be there and ate the free lunch. They didn't sit near us, though, so I mostly didn't care. At least, not until they decided they'd stayed long enough and wanted to leave. That's when he slipped up behind my grandma while she was talking with friends and dropped this gem:

"Not to sound mercenary, but you have a check for me?"

What. The. Fuck. I was behind and heard the whole thing. At this point, I was not in stunned silence mode, but ready to go off on him. I could tell by my grandmother's face, though, that she didn't want a scene so I refrained. It was hard, though. Oh, so hard.

And in what universe is a comment like that _NOT_ considered mercenary!?! PLEASE report this douchewaffle to his superiors, this man has no buisness ministering to anybody!

Sorry for your loss, then having to put up with all of this...

[Seshat]

Excuse the puns, but:

His care was not at all pastoral. The man - and his wife - have no business being in the service of a congregation.

I have known pastors and pastors-wives (and in certain religions, pastors and pastors-husbands) who are perfect couples for the job. They're human, so they do make mistakes, but their dominant personality feature is CARE. Concern for their community and congregation. I have come to dislike organised religion; but I have a great deal of respect for these people.
(I assume that there are rabbis, imams, and the equivalents in the other organised religions who are similar in their care and concern for their congregations. That I have not met any personally is a factor of social geography.)

I can only hope that enough complaints reach the deacon that this non-pastor and his non-pastoral wife are moved out of a congregation-facing position; and that a pastor (and perhaps spouse) like those I have known replaces him.

As for great-grandma - all I can say is to remember her as she was, not the funeral. For my Nan, I choose to remember her when camellias flower. And we've decided that since camellias grow in my area, we'll make the front garden a camellia garden.

If you can do something similar for your grandmother, it might make her last years more cheerful. What was your great-grandmother's favourite flower? Does it grow in your area? If your grandmother doesn't have a small bit of garden, does the flower grow in pots?

[Jetfire]

Does the community that church is in have a local paper with a community/oped section of some sort? You could write up your experiences and send it in, see if they would print it. Also definitely shoot it up the church chain of command; maybe the retired pastor would know who to contact if you can't find out. Or your local pastor if you have one where you live now. All in all that behavior was inexcusable, but some public attention might knock some sense into him (or at least get him bumped somewhere where his services are more appropriate; perhaps a church on a deserted North Atlantic island....)

[Cookie]

What I'm leaning toward here is seeing how it goes with my great aunt talking with the deacons. She's still a member and therefore carries a lot more weight in this situation. Also, it feels more appropriate for her to be the one to take it up. I really don't like going to the paper. It's a tiny town full of gossip anyway and that kind of thing can EASILY turn against my family up there.

Cemetery Antics:

I do love humor in situations where it really shouldn't be funny.

Apparently, the cemetery charges just as much to dig a little hole for an urn as they do to bury a coffin. However, they told my grandma most people just do it themselves and they're ok with that. So, we had a private burial with just family. There were only 5 of us there at the cemetery. We put the urn in the back of the Jeep along with shovels. Ended up carrying a lot of leftovers from the luncheon around back there, too.

The cemetery was out in the middle of nowhere. Also, it's a HUGE cemetery. Once we arrived, we didn't know where to go. The office was closed and there was no map. I even pulled out my iPhone and looked for a map of the place online. I should have known better, though. People around there look at you like a deer in the headlights if you say "Wifi". We drove around for half an hour before we finally found the right section. They all had names like "Garden of ___" "____ Garden" and so on.

When we did find it, the section was pretty large. We looked at the plot deed to see which was the right one: 123 - A Crrraaap. There was no visible numbering system. Thankfully, the stone was laid, so we just had to find that stone. We split up and were all walking up and down the rows. Most of the stones were flat to the ground so we had to pull aside the grass that was trying to grow over it to see the names. This was going to take a while. Finally, a nice lady came by with a jug of water for some flowers and we had the following conversation:

Lady: Are you looking for a grave?
Me: Yes. The funeral was today so we really need to find it!
Lady: I guess so! :looking around:
Me: The cemetery office was closed and we couldn't find any map.
Lady: They're not going to dig it up for you???
Me: No, we're going to do it ourselves.

I swear, I just wasn't thinking when I said it. I should have realized what was going through her head as she stared at me in horrified shock. Finally, I realized what was going on.

Me: IT'S AN URN! It's just a little urn we're not, um, yeah.

The relief on her face was so intense. I now realized why she had been repeatedly looking up at the Jeep!

She was awesome, though, and explained the numbering system to me. Apparently, if you pull the grass back on one of the corners of the stones, there are numbers and letters engraved there so we could find the right spot.

We had our private goodbye at the grave. I cried, but I had to smile as I thought of how hard she would have laughed at the conversation with that nice lady. Part of her awesome legacy is her wonderful sense of humor.