My uncle died and I took the SO to the get together.  After a few minutes in the room he leaned over to me and asked if my uncle was well liked.  I said yes and asked why.  He said that no one seemed to be very sad.

We do fun funerals in my family.  We aren’t the types to sit around and have great soul searching emotional moments together.  We are the types who once had a memorial poker game instead of a funeral and no one found it strange.

My dad, the SO and I were talking to my aunt (the widow).  Dad asked how long they had been married.  She said 58 years.  “I wanted to make it to 60.  We just renewed our vows in June.  Then he up and dies on me.”  To which I added, “Second time was too much?”  The SO seemed horrified but recovered when we all laughed.  Then my dad started repeating the story but changing it so he seemed to add the punchline.  Everyone is always stealing my lines.

A problem with going to funerals with your 60 something year old parents is that they are starting to plan ahead.  There was a video playing on a loop featuring pictures of my uncle.  My dad decided that he wants that at his funeral.  But he doesn’t want to rely on chance.  He was making a list of photos that he wants to have taken so he can be properly remembered.  Most of them involved him triumphantly crossing the finish line at races.  (He’s one of those crazy runner types.)  I volunteered to write captions for under them.  “Grandpa always said all that exercise would kill him someday,” was my first thought.  At that point the SO advised my father to outlive me.