New Rules for Funerals
By Nancy Pickard
This is not going to be the most sensitive blog post you'll ever read.
If you have recently been involved with a funeral of someone you loved and whom you miss terribly, you might want to skip this. Either that, or accept my apologies in advance. I don't mean to offend. What I mean to do is to CORRECT, and what I want to correct is. . .funerals.
I've just about had it with long-winded, self-indulgent funerals, and the self to whom I'm referring is not the deceased person. It's her relatives, friends, and ministerial windbag. Funerals can be sad, funny, serious, light-hearted, any of that and more, and it's all good; they can make us laugh and cry and they can comfort the heartbroken, and it's all good, but what they don't need to do is contend for the Guiness Book of World Records, Longest Funeral category.
So I'm going to lay down some new rules here. Feel free to add your own. As we go over these new rules together, we will keep in mind that grieving people need sympathy and help. They cannot be expected to think straight without our guidance, which we will offer kindly and gently, if I can keep from yelling.
First, some historical perspective: If you're old enough, maybe you'll recall that 115 people didn't used to get up to speak at any given funeral. We got the clergyperson, a little music, a couple of prayers, and that was it, unless the person who died was Catholic or Episcopalian, and then you needed to arrange for a late supper because you wouldn't be getting home any time soon.
Then somebody, somewhere, decided that three brothers, two sisters, and an aunt should also get up and speak. Before long, somebody else added the best friend. Then the second-best friend. Then along came two clergypeople, often from opposing religions. The old joke was no longer, "A rabbi, a Baptist minister, and a Catholic priest walked into a bar." Now it was, "A rabbi, a Baptist minister, and a Catholic priest walked into a funeral."
And so the era of The Everlasting Funeral was born.
I'm sorry if this seems heartless, but really, have a heart, People Who Plan Funerals!
I speak from too much experience, not because I've lost a slew of friends of my own lately, but because my mom is very old. Having gone through all the funerals of the people she knew who would, if alive, be in their 100's now, we are working our way down through all the funerals of the young people she knows--in their 80's and 70's. There was one of those today and I couldn't face it: I am here at my office writing this while she is seated in a pew, and I will pick her up there when it's over. I know she's going to be in pain and exhausted by the time I see her.
So, new Rules:
1. No more than two, at most three, friends or family members will speak. The exception would be in the case of a memorial service in which a lot of people get up to say just a few sentences. I recently saw this done beautifully at a graveside where there had not been a formal funeral earlier. Eight people spoke in pithy, pungent, and parsimonious style. 
Then we placed packs of cigarettes, packs of playing cards, a bag of Werther's candy, and roses on the casket to accompany the deceased to the Great Card Game in the Sky. It was funny, fond, and completely respectful.
2. At a formal funeral, each speaker will be given a firm 5-minute time limit and if they exceed it the organist will start playing "Rock of Ages, Fall on Thee."
3. Each speaker is to keep firmly in mind that the funeral is not about them. Here is a clue so they can tell: See that casket at the front of the sanctuary? YOU ARE NOT IN IT. If it is a casketless funeral, check the printed program: if your name is not listed there with both a birth and death date, then all of these people are not gathered here today in your honor. Don't be sad about this: your time will come. But you won't get to speak.
Speakers are encouraged to count the number of first-person pronouns in their little speech. Little speech. Little. If they count more "I," "Me" and "Mine," words than "Him" or Her" words, then they think they are speaking at their own funeral service. Listen up: THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU!
Acceptable:
"John was a talented writer and a generous one." Followed by an ancedote that makes John look good without making the speaker look better.
Unacceptable:
"I'll never forget how generous John was to me when I was just starting out as a writer. 
I treasure the blurb he gave me on my first book, NARCISSISM AND ME, when he wrote, This is a brilliant book!' He wasn't even jealous when my latest book jumped over his on the bestseller lists. He was far too modest to be anything but delighted for me."
4. Family and friends will not tell identical stories. You will check with each other first, if possible. If you can't do that--because your sister will have a hissy fit if she doesn't get to tell the story, even though you were the one who was there, not she--or your brother will rewrite your entire speech--or some of you aren't speaking to each other--then you must be prepared to edit your speech on the spot, so we don't get five stories about the time your dad drove the car into the lake to prove it could float. If you make this sacrifice, your sister may get the laughs, but you will get our grateful recommendation to Heaven. And trust me, even if your sister gets the laugh, there will be people walking out who whisper to each other, "Suzie's speech was funny, but she should have cut it in half." To which someone else will reply, "Oh, my God, yes! I thought she would never stop."
5. If the deceased was elderly, you will remember that many of the mourners will be old, too. It is better if you don't talk so long that one of them dies in the pews while you are still speaking. Clue: When one of them groans and bends over her cane, as I saw an old lady do at a funeral recently, you will take that as a hint to QUIT TALKING. Lordy, show a little mercy, will you? 
Also, minimize the getting up and the sitting back down again, for heaven's sake. It's hard on those old knees and, yes, nobody *has* to stand up for every hymn, but a lot of old people like to be respectful of tradition and some of them don't want to appear as infirm as they are.
6. The cleryperson will limit his or her remarks to ten minutes. If he or she goes over, the organist will start playing, "What a friend we have in egg timers."
These are simple rules that will, when followed, pour down blessings on you and all your descendents forevermore, amen.
Thank you.
