Personal Narrative Essay: Tommy Reece's Funeral

My uncle Tommy Reece was buried Wednesday surrounded by family and friends. A funeral is a time for reflection and respect and following the body to the grave brings closure, so I’ve heard. With that said, I have yet to attend a visitation or go to a funeral that there wasn’t something strange to occur. Strange in a funny way, haphazard way, or an eerie way.

When my aunt and I went to the florist to pick out flowers, I said to the owner, “Please avoid selling any “do-dads.” They knew what I meant. “My family isn’t into ceramic angels that glow in the dark or other such items. What turned me off was being at a funeral home for an acquaintance and right behind the casket was an angel with something like wire wings coming out the sides that changed colors. That was spooky.

My mom attended a funeral one time when the preacher had the man’s name wrong. He went on and on about this man until the daughter went up, stopped him, and gave him the right name. The name he was using was actually standing in the back singing in the choir.

I thought back during Tommy’s funeral to one of the funniest times

Perkins get up to move away. All of a sudden from under his topcoat fell his suit pants down to the top of his shoes. He turned to his son and in a deadpan voice said, “Son, will you pull up my pants?” I was standing behind him holding my side, trying not to laugh, but the entire group of pallbearers broke down. To this day my son-in-law, who was a pallbearer, remembers that he laughed so hard he made a misstep and almost fell into the hole. Guy was so doubled up, he propped himself on his mother’s casket to keep from falling over. His grandson, Jim Berry, and our son Jon laughed so hard they were crying. Guy pulled up his dad’s pants and they walked out of the tent to the puzzled mourners. “I didn’t know what in the world was going on when I heard you all laughing,” Carolyn