I’m lucky enough that I haven’t been to many funerals in my lifetime. The few that I’ve attended have all been overwhelmingly respectful and loving. But unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, all sense of etiquette flies out the window…and funerals are arguably the worst possible place for that to happen.
So I found this Reddit thread where people shared the absolute worst thing they’ve ever seen someone do at a funeral, and let me tell ya, it’s shocking. Let’s go through some of the top responses then, shall we?
1.
“I went to the funeral of a coworker’s fiancé. The girl’s ex showed up, and as people were lined up to say goodbye, we all witnessed him lean into the coffin and kiss her on the lips. I will repeat myself: the ex-boyfriend of the deceased woman kissed her dead body at her funeral…in front of her fiancé. Her brothers quite literally threw him out.”
2.
“My brother-in-law is a mortician. Boy, does he have stories. One of the best: A guy disguised himself as a nun, showed up at the funeral, pulled a gun from under his habit, and tried to shoot the deceased’s son. Luckily, the gun malfunctioned and didn’t fire. The son then decked the nun and knocked him out. He kicked him in the head a few times, and got pulled off by other family. The police were called, yada yada yada…turns out the deceased owed the nun quite a lot of money and the son had refused to honor the debt.”
3.
“The granddaughter of the deceased started a fire in the church bathroom during the funeral. No idea why she did it. She wasn’t mentally well, though, and her grandmother’s death really messed her up. Luckily it was put out pretty quickly and didn’t cause much damage. Odd thing was that it was the men’s room and not the women’s.”
4.
“A friend of the family with a notorious drinking problem showed up to the visitation and service extremely intoxicated. She is not a sad drunk; she is a happy, huggy drunk, so she went around sloppily hugging everyone — even people she didn’t know. She slurred introductions and condolences to everyone for about an hour then tripped over a settee in one of the sitting rooms of the funeral home and faceplanted.”
5.
“My sister murdered her father, my stepfather. At the time, we didn’t know she was guilty. (Just so you know, she did this purely for financial gain.) During the viewing, she dragged her little boy to the casket, and because he didn’t cry enough to suit her, she pinched him on the upper arm until he was sobbing, then took him around to everyone saying he was really crying because he loved his gramps so much.”
6.
“The officiant moved the partner of the deceased back a couple of rows because they weren’t family. At least that was their initial reasoning…I’m sure it had nothing to do with the partner being same sex. I was furious. And then it got worse: The officiant decided to make the entire funeral about mental health, and how everyone should get help. Nothing about the life of the loved one. No celebration of their accomplishments, of the beauty they brought to the world. Nothing. Keep in mind that 80% of the congregation still believed the death was because of physical health reasons. We would’ve coped with the knowledge, but telling us it was suicide only as a platform for the rest of us to ‘seek help’ was heartbreaking. Only funeral I’ve ever rung and complained about.”
7.
“My nan told my dad at his own father’s funeral that her pain was much greater because she had lost a husband, while he had only lost his dad. As if grief is a competition. She’s a horrible person anyway, and not even blood-related to us. so we just kinda don’t associate anymore.”
8.
“A few years back, when the uncle of my mother died, my 8-year-old cousin cried a lot at the funeral. It took some time, but eventually he calmed down, and his parents went for a little walk with him for some distraction. But then he noticed that his first name was written on one of the tombstones. He mentioned it loudly, and one of the bystanders said: ‘Yeah, it’s already reserved for you.’ He immediately started crying again.”
9.
“My mother-in-law took a photo of a wine glass during the lunch we had after, and she posted it on Facebook. Guess what her caption was? ‘Life is grand.’ It was my mother’s funeral.”
10.
“The gentleman had a large family, and all of his siblings got up and made it all about themselves, dredged up old family drama, and made it clear that they resented his wife. It was so painfully awkward.”
11.
“My uncle was pissed about something in my grandmother’s will. So during the funeral, he went out to the parking lot and keyed everyone’s car. It should be noted, he has a severe brain injury from a motorcycle accident that causes him to be constantly angry and paranoid. Still…”
12.
“My husband went to his great-aunt’s funeral and while they did the little ceremony in the cemetery, his great aunt’s granddaughters were all hiding behind a tombstone giggling and doing coke.”
13.
“My mom passed 2 days before my first child was born. I didn’t get pregnant again until 11 years later, so I was 5 months pregnant with my second child when my father passed. Someone came up to me at the funeral and said to me, ‘You should stop having kids, it’s bad luck for your family.'”
14.
“The family didn’t allow for his twin to speak. They straight-up skipped over the allocated time for the living twin to get up and speak about his brother, who was his last remaining immediate family. I don’t think I can ever forgive the late wife for putting him through that. She treated him so horribly all throughout his sickness, and then to not allow him to be a part of the funeral was the final nail in the coffin.”
15.
“When my grandad passed and we went to view his body at the crematorium, my aunt started stealing from the facility the second the employee’s back was turned. Just shoving anything that wasn’t nailed down into her purse and pockets. Unbelievable. And yes, we called her out and made her put it all back.”
16.
“He handed out his business cards at his stepdaughter’s funeral. There was very nearly a fistfight!”
17.
“My uncle died and at his funeral my cousin (his son) was crying. Some old-timer uncle came up to him and said, ‘Stop crying, you’re a man. You’re embarrassing us.’ I never wanted to slap someone at a funeral more than at that moment.”
18.
“Someone’s kid thought it’d be funny to give the corpse a wet willy. The kid was, like, 7, and I’m almost positive didn’t even know the deceased. Their whole family dragged their kids out of the door and they did not return.”
19.
“The priest called the deceased ‘full of sin’ and refused one of his final requests that his dog’s ashes be buried with him. His son didn’t care and snuck in his dog’s ashes with his anyways.”
20.
“This is a story my father told me from when he was a child in the 1940s. There was an church beside the farm where he grew up in rural South Carolina. The church had no electricity. There was a funeral there one evening, and the church was lit throughout with candles. The church building had existed since just after emancipation, and was in really bad shape. The flooring had been severely damaged by termites. During the funeral, the floor gave way, making the casket tumble and the body fall out. Everyone ran out of the church in terror. Making matters worse, the candles that were on the casket fell to the floor and set the church on fire. The whole community watched outside as it burned to the ground.”
21.
“My minister once told a story. He was waiting in a room off the sanctuary before the funeral when he heard scuffling noises. When he went to investigate, the brother and sister of the deceased had pulled the body out of the casket and propped it between them. They explained that they didn’t have a recent photo of the three of them and were delighted he showed up to take the picture.”
22.
“My gran’s sister died recently, and they were holding a service at my aunt’s house before the burial. My gran, closing in on 90, deaf and suffering from vascular dementia, lost patience with the celebrant as she was about halfway through the reading and loudly announced, ‘Oh, will she just bloody shut up?!’ at the top of her lungs. My poor mum was completely mortified, although the rest of the family was very understanding. Luckily, no one returned the ‘favour’ at my Gran’s service the following year.”
23.
“When I was 10 at my grandpa’s funeral, a relative told me I was ‘lucky’ for being so young because now I’ll never remember or miss my grandpa.”
24.
“My cousin took a selfie with the body. I smacked the ever-living piss out of them for that.”
25.
“My uncle was cremated. He lived across from a lake and it was decided that we wanted his ashes spread on this little island on this lake. I was tasked with swimming with the urn from the boat to the island, holding it out of the water. I then stood at the edge of a small cliff with my nephew’s beside me and all the family watching in the boat. I opened the urn to dump his ashes over the cliff. We all say a few things, and as I go to dump the ashes, the wind picks up and blows the ashes all over my wet body. One of the worst things that ever happened to me.”
26.
“My mom tells this story of me at my grandmother’s funeral every chance she gets. I was, like, 5, and I was handing out the funeral home’s business cards to all the old people. You know, because they would need it soon. I was a goddamn gentleman.”
27.
“The funeral directors put the flowers in my step-nan’s hearse — lovely flowers and all that. One big problem is that they were in upside down, so as we rode behind the hearse we quickly realise it did not say ‘mom,’ but now simply said ‘wow.'”
Have you ever seen a funeral attendee do something rude, out of touch, or just plain awful? Tell us in this anonymous form, or in the comments below!