I’m the one who started chuckling at my aunties funeral.
Earlier this year my auntie passed away from lung cancer. We knew it would happen eventually and she was already in hospital so it wasn’t a shock to anyone. A few hours before she passed she was screaming at the top of her lungs because she was in agonising pain. Later that afternoon we were in the check out line at woollies when my dad got a message saying she had died.
About a week after she died we held a small funeral, planned by my cousins. It wasn’t exactly formal and we just had the funeral at the morgue but it wasn’t tacky or anything, just a small room with a few rows of folded chairs and an urn containing her ashes at the front.
After saying a prayer we all sat down. The woman working at the morgue said a few things, read a poem and then went to say rest in peace. The only issue is she messed up the word peace and accidentally said “rest in deez.” I couldn’t hold in my laughter and started quietly chuckling at the back.
My mum, grandad, brother and dad turned to look at me but I have a weird laugh so anyone that wasn’t around me frequently thought I was crying a little.
I wasn’t laughing really loud or anything but you could probably hear it from the front row if you listened carefully enough.
Eventually what the lady had said had processed in my dads brain and he started laughing a little bit too and on the way to my cousins house for the wake it was all we could talk about. Also how my cousin was getting other people to buy food for the wake despite being the host (she hadn’t cooked anything).