Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 06, 2011

JJ is making Kim look better and better by comparison.

This is becoming one of those funerals where people are showing up just make sure the person is dead.

J.J. has come to gloat over her dead mother-in-law and to wound her, as it were, through Michael. Imagine how insufferable she’d be if this were Kim’s funeral.

Kim always looked better.

At an age where I attend more funerals than weddings, how come only tired cliches leave my mouth?

At my great-aunt’s funeral I was viewing the body with an aunt. The aunt said the standard “Doesn’t she look natural?” I replied “No. She would look natural if she were sitting in her arm chair with her binoculars on her lap.” The aunt was rather shocked.

My family tends to use cremation. If nothing else, it eliminates the trite comments about looking natural… and so far nobody has made any jokes about being burned-out.

@Lewreader

Death is the ultimate cliche.

You can credibly show respect at a funeral to someone you dislike, or even someone that you have tried to kill in the past. Consider Barzini attending Don Corleone’s funeral. Not respecting your enemies leaves one vulnerable to them, even after they’re dead.

By the way, Daisy’s death shouldn’t have been a surprise to us. She told us it was coming back on November 17, during the “bedbug” episode.

I cremated my wife and I shall be cremated for one reason only, except for giving the body to science or dumping the body, it is the cheapest way to go. By the way, if you are good at hiding the body, you can still collect the Social Security checks.

Creamation would have been a very good choice here.

hopefully she didn’t drag her loser boyfriend along

@Larry: In my town, and maybe everywhere, the funeral home notifies Soc Sec Office immediately. Any paperwork someone else does for you is a big help, so don’t complain. Husband cremated, as I will be.

PS: I’ve been gone for two weeks and have no idea what is going on or who these people are, so won’t have much to comment on until the story changes. Doonesbury came into my life about a year ago through GoComics.

I can’t help but wonder what people would do if I do what I see myself doing at my mother’s funeral… singing “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead.” And I’m not some kid either.. I’m 49.

@Nelly55: JJ’s “loser boyfriend” is really her “loser husband”. As crazy as it sounds, they did marry. They even got ring tattoos on their fingers. And I’m betting she did bring him along.

Let us pray…

@Dragoncat: please, no – not “Uncle Stupidhead”!

@silver29512: know the feeling. When my dad croaks, I plan to have a previous engagement. Possibly in another state.

Funerals. the end of someone and the end of relationships you didn’t want to begin with. No more reason to gather for Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner any more. No reason to learn to forgive or move on. No reason to think of them except for personal venom.

Or…

A chance to make an appointment a month or a year from then to let emotions die and talk about the things that ate you alive with the dead person was alive. And end the acid that’s been etching such pain in you life.

Choices can be made.

I was once asked what I’d like to hear people say about me at my funeral. My response was “Look, he’s moving.”

I read an interview with my centarian great-great uncle before he died stating that he was going to leave his body to science “so they could find out why he never died.”

At my sister’s funeral, I won’t be anywhere near as restraines as J J. On the other hand, I don’t plan on attending.

Wow, doesn’t anyone here like their families?

I’m going to be burned and have my ashes tossed up into the wind. Then they will say: “He always was scatter-brained. Now he’s scatter-bodied.”

griefofdawn, I made a similiar comment, however, it involved a hatchet.

I love my mother-in-law, and I’m closer to her than I am to any of my blood relatives even though my wife’s been dead for nearly twelve years. We still call each other once a month; My sister, though, I have neither seen nor talked to in nine years.

Thankfully, I have a great family. I even like my ex wife’s folks still, and they always try to hook up with me when I’m down in NOLA especially at Mardi Gras time. I guess they like to party with a pro, lol.

Lots of bioenergy in a human body. Burial and cremation are a waste. Blend them.