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Ahhh man slum….
Chill da f uck out. Stop bragging.🤪
Cheers slum🍻
Smoke a cig and smoke and stop taking yourself so
serious.

My Dad’s funeral in 62, he was only 45 I was 7

My first funeral was in 1960 when my grandmother died.

The first funeral I paid for was in 2008 when my mother died.
I could tell the funeral director was lying to me.

I will always remember the ladies at the courthouse where my mother worked. Against County orders, they locked the doors and stood alongside the highway while the funeral proccession passed. They are true Southern ladies and I love them all.

My father when I was 10
This year wife and I prepaid our funeral, ( 9K each)
We didn't want our kids stuck with the task and the expense.

Ha! Told my wife to flush me down the toilet. What do I care, I'm ded.

My brother passed away on October 16 ... my Dad, one of the greatest men who has ever lived, passed away ten days later on the 26th.

It's been tough. I miss them both every day.

Both chose cremation ... it's what we do. When we were kids Dad used-to give us books about warriors, all kinds of warriors from Romans to Vikings, Gauls, Native Americans, et al., it's the way it's supposed-to-be. Either natural decomposition or cremation. They should allow us to set funeral pyers and do it the old family way.

Dad was a master diver ... he really wanted to be put in a boat, set it afire and pushed out to sea.

Funeral homes are a racket. They've gone public, they're under corporate control .... it's a [bleep] racket. Coffins should be built by Sons and holes dug by Sons if that's the way a parent or loved-one wants to go .... even gravestones I can live with. But the whole funeral home, embalming, $6k caskets and $4k plots and $4k to dig a hole and hold a service because they're pushing this thing about God is going to raise the bones .... [bleep] that. Ashes to ashes dust to dust.

I just went through it twice this month with two men I love ... God Bless funeral homes I guess, they come and take the bodies away but when they set you down in the room the next day when you're holding onto memories and they try to up-sell you on caskets and burials ... even urns ... funeral processions, hearses, etc., etc., etc., ... it is absolutely obscene.

I’m truly sorry for your 2 loses, especially so close together. That’s gotta be tough especially since it sounds like you were raised by good and loving parents that taught you how important family is and how special those bonds are.

You and your family are in my prayers Sir.

To the OP….

My first funeral was when I was in the 6th grade. My best friend Kurt used to invite me often to spend the weekends at his family’s beach cabin on Lopez island in the San Juans. We’d ride his 3 wheelers in the forests, fields and beaches for hours. We’d fish, ride horses and hit golf balls into the bay like 2 young boys that owned the world. One spring day we were riding the bus home when Kurt asked if I wanted to go to his cabin that coming weekend, I wanted to say yes but had committed to going fishing with grandpa for opening morning so I told Kurt I’d take a rain check.

I was outside with my other good friend Travis playing in the fort I’d built and shooting starlings with our BB guns when mom called me and Travis inside. Kurt had been killed up on Lopez while riding the 3 wheeler. He didn’t see the barbed wire fence strand and it caught him at the neck. I remember not knowing how to process that information and going back outside to play….all the while feeling guilty for playing. I had many long talks with mom and dad about death and through them began to prepare myself for dealing with death over and over and over again, too many damn times. 2 years later I buried another dear friend after a Coke machine fell over and killed him in his high school gymnasium. It seemed that I averaged a friend a year for too many years and then I got to the age where I’m burying parents and family. I thought a career with much death would help harden me to the pain of those loses….but it doesn’t.

Thank you. Wish I could share their obits without doxing myself. A couple of the guys on this forum know my family and me, they get it .... my brother had his demons he could never overcome. Dad ... he never took a backwards step. 82 years ... he fought 'till the end, I was there with him, he went out like a man. They both did. Brother drank himself to death ... Dad quit drinking 50 years ago and worked to stay in shape until his final days.

When God comes calling then it's time ... but this funeral home racket, most of them good people, I'll give them that but they're so hardened to death and it's all about sales and money ...

Everyone should do like my brother and Dad did ... make yoir wishes known, prepare in advance and don't leave it up to the bereaved ... it's an emotional time, especially for Mom. She's really struggling. Lost her baby of 62 years then her husband of 64 years ... and they still tried-to upsell.

It's obscene.

Dad left big footprints ... wish I could share his obit. He was an incredible man. The things he did, the people who have come forward since his passing to tell us of how he helped them in life and what a difference he made in their lives .... it's been incredible. He lived a good life.

He was strong. It wasn't my brother's passing that killed him ... it was just his time. I'll miss them both every day for the rest of my life ... we all do when it comes to family I think but this man was rare, this man was incredible. More people have asked me, "what was it like being his Son?"

It was great ... it was a blessing.

For my brother, it was probably an impossible set of standards ... I'll never understand that. For me ... it was like being the Son of a living breathing hero. The fairest man I have ever known, the hardest working man I habe ever known. Came from nothing ... yet he achieved so much. He gave me such a headstart, a leg up, am advantage ... and I will always be greatful to him for that.

He really loved life and this country. He was thankful for being born in this country .... he never used being born into poverty as an excuse or as a victim.

Anyways, I could go on and on.

I really wish I could share his obit and the video. But in truth, even that didn't tell a tenth of his life story.

Tell you what Aces ... check your PMs. I'll share it with you .... you may want comment here afterwards and share your thoughts if you wish. Please keep our identities private, I trust you. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the obit.

This here is the truth and really fuggin hurt when I buried my first wife at age 37. She did alot for people and put herself out quite a bit, even so that it sometimes caused arguments but she always meant well to help people that were down yet only family came to her viewing or the cemetery. I thought that was pretty low and it still breaks my heart.

As for the OP question, my first funeral was at age 10 of my grandma who died from congestive heart failure. My dad had kinda gave me an idea of what to expect and I was okay, outside of standard grief for losing a grandparent. My uncle Nick died shortly after her from pancreatic cancer but without going into a long drawn out story I got to stumble downstairs into the embalming room during his service. Nobody was in there but I saw all of the machines, table, equipment amd chemicals but even at that age developed a desire to do that job because I saw it as a person doing a thankless job trying to give a grieving family one last decent memory. I did later pursue that career and got along in college until a family emergency ended it for me so here I am a gun mechanic now.

My first funeral was for my youngest Brother ... killed ... a car. I was 8 at the time. He was run over in front of me by a car in Louisville, Kentucky, ... Pleasure Ridge Park just off the Waterson Express Way when my other brother and he lost control of their sled coming down a hill, hit a bush and slid out into a road where a woman couldn't stop in the snow and ice ... and that was it. It happened that fast.

Long time ago. Seems like yesterday.

My other brother never got over it. He died the 16th of last month. He had a drinking problem ... life whipped him.