h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When my grandfather died the officiating person got his name wrong.
It was embarrasing for my mother. She had to go up and ask if the deceased was her father.

When my father died he was cremated when the coffin went into the hole in the wall, it jumped as if it was going to open up. We saw this as the curtain did not draw.

When my mother was cremated the officiate went on and on about his bereavements and spoke very little about my mother. My brother had given him notes on which to draw about her life, these notes took him hours of anguish to write. We were both upset.

Every funeral I have ever attended has been remembered for its mistakes or ommisions rather than the leave taking it was.

This post got me thinking a bit. What would be the perfect funeral? Is it possible? What is it, people start crying, but they stop just before everyone around them becomes uncomfortable? It's just the right amount of sadness? People looking for perfection in a funeral are setting themselves up for a fall. Someone's just died, everyone's surrounded by people that they haven't seen in years, sometimes for good reasons, and the only person that's actually in their element is the funeral director. And quite frankly, funeral directors don't seem to be the most normal of people in my own experience. With all this screwy energy around a funeral, I don't think there's any way for the funeral not to get screwed. It's as though the collective will of the audience simply forces it to happen.