Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The first funeral you remember?

My uncle Vernon when I was young. Body laid out in grandmas house.

I was around 10 when I went to my first funeral. I was supposed to go with my best friend to his family’s cabin on Lopez island up in the San Juan islands. We’d go several times a year and ride horses all over the woods and beaches. As we got older we’d ride his 3 wheelers back when they still made those death traps. One day around the end of April or beginning of May Kurt asked me if I wanted to go to the cabin with him that weekend but I told him that I had already planned on going fishing with my grandpa and would have to take a rain check. The following day was a beautiful spring day, warm with clear blue skies. That afternoon I had just returned from fishing and was outside with my other best friend building our fort when mom called me inside. She had me sit on the couch next to her and proceeded to tell me that Kurt was riding the 3 wheeler but didn’t see the barbed wire fence in the woods. The top strand caught him in the neck right around his adams apple....it killed him.

The funeral was just a blur to me but I remember feeling an immense sadness and a helplessness like I’d never felt before. It was an open casket funeral and while mom told me that I didn’t have to go up and see him lying there if I didn’t want to but I remember telling her that I WANTED to say goodbye to him since I wouldn’t see him again for a long time. My biggest concern was what I should say to his mom and dad. They were great parents and seeing them suffer the loss of their son really hit me hard. I asked mom what is appropriate and mom told me to say what was in my heart. After saying goodbye to my buddy I walked up to his parents who were sitting in the front pew and somehow my 10 year old brain was able to formulate a couple of coherent sentences. I told them that, “I pray that God gives you comfort and strength......Kurt will always be my best friend.” That’s practically verbatim what I said to them 40 years ago. His parents both broke down and hugged so hard and so long.

I think about Kurt all the time and I’ve always pray for his family, even now. He was a great kid and would’ve gone on to be a great man but God had a different plan for him.

Funerals never got any easier for me.

wasn't my first......but one I'll always remember

My older brother Les....1968...died in Nam......

Very vivid memories of that day

The first funeral I attended was my maternal grandmother's when I was eight. She was old, tough and mean, She got a lot better after she died and was pretty well loved in the family lore by my mother and her sisters as improved from the grave. They were all nuts.

Been to a few funerals that were tough. It hurts when someone dies too young, leaves a young family or the world just seems a lesser place when they're gone. I've also been to a couple funerals recently that were celebrations of lives well lived. You miss the person but also get to see how many people loved and respected them, hear the stories of their lives and thank God you were one of the lucky ones to know them.

Thanks all, it is a somber topic, but we have to bury our dead.

Better than a sanitized taint....

Not me. Cremated and scattered by the wind off a rock ledge with a helluva view. Waste of valueable real estate for me.

Sister's hamster.

Service then a quick internment to the family garden next to the dog poop hole.

word

Sombitch

damn. just damn. made me cry. tikka. must be getting old.

I was in 3rd grade. A good friend and his two brothers died in a house fire. Was awful.

First funeral was my Dad when I was 12, best day of my life up to that point.

Not judging, but dayum...
fortunate to grow up with two wonderful parents. Nothing but supportive. Not afraid to tell me I was a dumbass when It was appropriate, but glad they did.

RIP Les.

1955, an uncle.

Aunt Maude, I was about 6.

Ingwe will probably say Queen Victoria.

The last I intend to be in attendance is, mine.

It is the last thing I intend to do!

I was about 3-4 years old when my cousin died. He had been stationed in Germany during the Berlin blockade, when Stalin tried to take West Berlin and Truman stood up to him. The family worried about him, and was relieved when he came home on leave, but then he got drunk (first soldier on leave to do that) and died in a car crash. All I remember about it was being frightened by the shooting by the honor guard. I can still hear the rifle shots echoing from the hills, and the Springfield bolts cycling for the next volley.