D.Currie wrote:
> >
> > I've only ever been to two funerals -- one for a coworker who died of a
> > heart attack at the age of 35, and one for a friend who died of stomach
> > cancer at the age of 46. Everyone else who's ever been close to me is
> > still living.
>
> That's amazing. My parents brought me to wakes and funerals when I was a
> little kid. Partly because they couldn't afford a sitter, partly because it
> wasn't all that unusual in our family for kids to attend, and I suppose it
> also was their attempt to explain death. But I went to a whole lot of wakes
> and funerals for aunts, uncles, friends of my parents, cousins. One
> grandparent (the only one still alive while I was) and I drove 900 miles for
> that one.
>

Since I was a small child and my brothers, too, we always went to
funerals with our parents. My parents wouldn't have known what a
sitter was so we always went where they went. I think it was a way of
explaining life and death and your loved ones will always not be with
you.

If the services were held out in the country at a church, food was
always at the deceased loved ones home. Here, all the funeral homes
have 'dining rooms' where friends can bring dishes for the bereaved to
consume. But I've never seen liquor offered nor consumed at these
services. And I have seen a bucket or two of KFC sitting on a table
until the er, ah, um, 'real food' arrived. No shame in that, someone
was thoughtful enough to provide something to nibble on.