This past weekend I attended the funeral for my nephew. He passed away a couple of days before Christmas and I wanted to share some experiences from this visit with family. It was quite a blow for my brother and his family, so we attended the funeral to pay our respects and to support my brother and his family.
There are two aspects of this visit that I wanted to share. First: the funeral itself. The funeral was a very emotional affair for everyone, obviously. But the bishop kept mentioning that “the spirit” was strong today? Really?? Crying = The Spirit? I was annoyed that he kept associating emotion with the spirit. People were not feeling the spirit, they were just really sad! It annoyed me that he was co-opting normal human emotion at a funeral and trying to associate that with a metaphysical experience. Besides, I had never thought the spirit was associated with such emotions as anguish and despair.
And then he did the normal mormon bishop asshat move and gave the plan of salvation sermon! Seriously?? The f*cking plan of salvation sermon at a funeral??! I know that is official direction from above to do that, but that is still a pretty asshat move. The girlfriend of my nephew and her family are all non members, so of course the funeral is the perfect time to try and convert them! It was so arrogant and offensive for me to listen to this BS that I made and excuse to get up and leave. My wife was already out in the hallway with my daughter, so I got up, pretending to go check on them. I couldn’t take it! I even tried to turn down the intercom in the hallway so I wouldn’t have to listen to the bishop.
Additionally, outside of all of the funeral drama I also had family drama to contend with. I am the only exmo in my family – my mother is uber MO, my bother and sister are marginally mo, and my dad is (non baptized) mo when my mom is around but Buddhist the rest of the time. (Pretty weird, eh?)
Anyway, the night before the funeral we were visiting with the family and my mom asked me what I got for Christmas. It has taken me a lot of time and courage to get to this point with my mom and I turned to her and said “I got an expensive bottle of wine for Christmas.” There was a little pause and my mom said “are you going to drink it?” I calmly replied “yes” but in my mind I was thinking “Duh!! What else do you do with a bottle of wine??!” Anyway, that was all that was said about that. I didn’t notice it until the end of the weekend, but for the rest of the visit my mom really didn’t say much else to me. Pretty much got the silent treatment. Oh well. Did I mention that my mom is crazy?
Finally, before we were about to leave, my mom was bitching to one of my relatives about her kids. She had specific gripes about my brother and sister, but when she got to me she said “and …. he’s not the son I raised!” Hmm, so now that I have admitted to you I drink wine, all of a sudden you don’t know me? Well, of course you don’t know me! You have never wanted to know the authentic me. You only cared to know the me that could fit in the mormon box you contructed for me. I have not changed, you just have never taken the time to get to know me, cuz you never cared for anything about me that was not mormon. And, let’s assume for a second that I have changed. Wouldn’t you as a parent want to take the time to get to know your child?? Wouldn’t you as a parent have tried to be there through all the changes?? Nope, apparently if you are not mormon then you are written off. Oh well.
In the end though, my wife (nevermo) really helped this weekend to forge a stronger relationship between us siblings, independent of my mom, in these tough times. It is very ironic that it took a nevermo to help heal my family. The relationship between my sister and I has been pretty good for a few years, thanks to my wife. I am hoping that I can slowly build a better bond with my brother now, thanks to my wife. 

Really great post. It really got to me. I got the whole Plan of Salvation rant at my Dad's funeral a while ago and your take on it is very powerful.

It can't even be about YOU at your own funeral??? I wanted so badly to hear stories of my father from people who knew him. All I got was a stranger, some Stake President, and that drivel.

I want to negotiate what will happen at my Mother's funeral, but I'm out numbered.

As somebody once said, "They know not what they do."

Yep. They pulled that sh!t at my grandmothers funeral. Bishop Jerkface said plainly, "This service is not about the deceased, it's about spreading the gospel".

I want to pay my respects, not listen to some bullshit sermon.

F~<king jagoffs.

I'm really sorry for you also. Also the mormon funeral is a blow and insult to you. they are using it as excuse to convert people. i have my funeral plans taped to my bedroom door. Including how I want to be dressed, with a warning that if they are not followed I will haunt the person responsible

about my funeral and burial no-no's. They are only teenagers but I can trust them to take a stand and DH to cave to them if I go first.

No temple on the headstone
No temple garments on the Mommy
No Mormons conducting the funeral

and they better proofread the obit because, although they probably can't help but mention my BYU degree and my mission and I'm OK with that, they better mention I died an Episcopalian (or whatever I am at that point). And I have promised I will haunt them if they don't - with specific things they should look for to prove they are being haunted. You can't do these things halfway...lol



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2012 04:30PM by CA girl.

You might want to mention the dress, veil and apron separately. They may want to put you in that pretty outfit as a send off.

I will be attending my TBM cousin's service tomorrow. They are all different and I attribute that to the bishop presiding and the main speaker doing the preaching. My parents funerals, in 1996 and 2000 were heavy on love and family and lighter on preaching the "gospel"....thankfully....I gave my Dad's eulogy and I called a spade a spade on a few occasions. I hate when the preaching overshadows the good works of the deceased. Almost like a Catholic funeral where some priests hardly mention the name of the deceased and it's all about the mass....as for me I have given specific instructions NOT to hold my service in a church of any kind and no clergy, MORG or otherwise are to participate....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2012 06:41PM by andyb.

I am sorry that your mother can't see the loving husband and son that she raised (well, you are what you are despite your mother, it seems.) I imagine she gives no credit to your wife either for helping to negotiage with your siblings. once you recoginze that your family is toxic, the best thing to do is to protect yourself from them.

Hope you enjoy that lovely bottle of wine!

So I went to my cousin's funeral this morning. She was a dear, sweet,caring person and that's what the funeral was about...a weee bit O' preachin' but not much and lots about her and how she loved and was loved by her her kids and grand kids and family and friends ....the way a funeral is SUPPOSED to be....and there were fair number of non-mo's there too...

I'm so sorry to hear about your nephew--and at Christmastime. How difficult and sad, please accept my condolences.

Interestingly, the Evangelicals do the same kind of thing at their funerals. Though I'm a nevermo Catholic, much of my extended family is Morg so I've been to both Morg and Catholic funerals (wow, big difference!). But at Thanksgiving DH and I went to a funeral for a dear friend who was an Evangelical and, oh, boy, was there some preaching going on! And midway through, those of us who 'had not yet seen fit to do so' were asked to 'bow our heads and ask Jesus into our hearts'!

I flat-out told the bishop that my husband didn't die so that the church could have another sacrament meeting and that if he insisted that there be a PoS talk we would hold the funeral somewhere else besides the chapel.

that's the short version.

Bottom line -- after the funeral he told me that it was the nicest one he had ever attended. Could be a reason . . . . .

I'm sorry about your nephew. Christmastime is a hard tome to lose someone -- not that it is ever easy.

Warm thoughts to you and to your family.

hahahaha! Thanks Laban's Head! When I read your post, I initially read "PoS" as "piece of ... (you know the rest)"! Took me a second to realize you were saying "plan of salvation". Now I am thinking there isn't much difference between the two. POS=PoS? haha! Thanks for making my night.

Also, thank you everyone for your condolences.

And yes, Raven, I am going to enjoy that wine. :-) It is a 2007 Silver Oaks cab. Yum! I should have also mentioned to my mom that my wife also got me a wine membership with Caduceus vineyards (a local vineyard). Four times a year I am going to be getting shipments of wine in the mail. (Yay me!) That might have been too much for my mom... ;-)

My grandfathers funeral was held in a Mormon church because he was Mormon as a child my dad is the only remaining member so of course he forced it upon the family. We go and the bishop talks about church crap and I wanted to go punch him in the face. My grandfather was a self proclaimed atheist at the end of his life and there we all sat in a Mormon church listening to nonsense. I had to go outside and smoke a cig I was so irritated and upset. I flicked it on thier roof hoping it would catch the place on fire but sadly it didn't