#funerals

Do you really think anyone needs some kind of notarized statement saying 'Dear Saint Peter, here's another stiff, pass him through the gates, signed, Father McGonnigill.'...'PS: He once had a hot dog on a Friday, but don't hold that against him.' ↗

— P. N. Elrod

#funerals #lady-crymsyn #religion-philosophy #vampire-files #death

Perhaps because it seems so appropriate, I don't notice the rain. It falls in sheets, a blanket of silvery thread rushing to the hard almost-winter ground. Still, I stand without moving at the side of the coffin. ↗

— Michelle Zink

#coffins #death #funerals #rainy-day #death

Death is a personal matter, arousing sorrow, despair, fervor, or dry-hearted philosophy. Funerals, on the other hand, are social functions. Imagine going to a funeral without first polishing the automobile. Imagine standing at a graveside not dressed in your best dark suit and your best black shoes, polished delightfully. Imagine sending flowers to a funeral with no attached card to prove you had done the correct thing. In no social institution is the codified ritual of behavior more rigid than in funerals. Imagine the indignation if the minister altered his sermon or experimented with facial expression. Consider the shock if, at the funeral parlors, any chairs were used but those little folding yellow torture chairs with the hard seats. No, dying, a man may be loved, hated, mourned, missed; but once dead he becomes the chief ornament of a complicated and formal social celebration. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#funerals #rituals #social-functions #death

Yeah, like, when I look back on my life, I just remember back what happened in '74, or something. It seems like only the real good stuff comes to mind. I don't think of all the tragedies and all the funerals. That just doesn't come to mind at all. I guess I'm really blessed that way. ↗

— Gregg Allman

#blessed #come #comes #funerals #good

Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends. ↗

— Mason Cooley

#asleep #during #fall #friends #funerals

And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. ↗

— Tennessee Williams

#funerals #death

Everyone was eating, talking softly, glancing at me, hugging me, eating. It was as if someone had turned the volume down. Everything looked normal, but the sound was muted. Death did this, set all this weirdness in motion, made people appear out of nowhere carrying casseroles, saying 'I'm sorry' over and over, death muffled their voices. ↗

— Joan Abelove

#funerals #grief #grieving #death

Sensei says funerals are not really for the dead. They are for those left behind. "The dead are long gone by the time a funeral is held," he told us. "Who would wait when the doors of Heaven are open? Only the living would be foolish enough to still hang around on earth. ↗

— Sandy Fussell

#funerals #life #death