POOR TASTE

The Cringey Joke I Told at Grandma’s Funeral

And Why I’m Still Savoring it

My dad’s mother died a year ago. She was 93 and as ready as anybody could be for the great beyond.

Ever since Grandpa died in 2010, Grandma had been vocally in favor of joining him. I’d thought everyone knew how much Grandma “looked forward” to “joining Ham in Heaven.” (her words — over and over — in person and letters.) But at least one of my uncles was shocked when I relayed that information.

“Maybe she tells her daughters and granddaughters more than us guys,” he said.

I can’t comment on that. But after Grandma’s memorial, I learned two things —

1. There’s no saving some people, and
2. Awkward statements on the deceased may be genetic.

Grandma wasn’t the kind of person to hold much back — especially in the last few years of her life. Sure, she stayed civil — even when she didn’t like someone. But ultimately there came a point where she was like a geriatric, female Eminem. If someone was doing something dickish, she’d throw her crocheting down onto the sofa, reach for her mic, and spit the truth.

Okay, maybe not quite that aggressively. But she did get bolder with time.

Giving the Catholic Church the finger does that to a person, I guess. Or maybe just the process of aging, wherein your brain’s frontal lobe filter just shrivels up and blows away [external link]. I don’t know. But I do plan on saying whatever TF I want when I’m old, citing the inability “tuh not to,” as Mater from Cars would say.

Or maybe I’ll mumble it like Ozzy Osbourne to evade punishment.

In any case, Grandma was kinda glad to die. It was sad to lose her, no doubt. She’d lived a bright life and was surrounded by loved ones, though. God help me — from my perspective, her loss was not utterly devastating.

Her memorial service was held this past summer, near the Mid-Michigan town she grew up in. Waiting over half a year to gather for her memorial meant more of our out-of-state family could come. We all stood near a cornfield near St. Joseph’s, waiting in the hot sun for everyone to arrive and pay their respects.

Grandma had been cremated and wasn’t exactly doing things the “right” way. Still, we scattered her ashes there in the cemetery. Then, I took tacky farmfield pictures with my dressed-up husband and kids, like the Children of the Corn we absolutely are.

A funeral-joke gaffe started to form before Grandma even died.

When she passed, I hadn’t seen any of my family in five years — a lifetime for a Michigan girl. Sad occasion or not, it was downright joyous to be there with them.

Before that, ever since I could remember, I’d spent a whole week at the lake every summer with my grandparents and bazillions of aunts, uncles, cousins, and second-cousins. With decades-old issues of Reader’s Digest in the bathroom, “the cabin” was an ancestral place I could count on to stay the same — or get bigger and better. Blissfully, I didn’t ponder that we could shrink.

These people are everything to me. But right up until the time Grandma died, pandemic lockdowns and general chaos of my own large-nuclear-family life had clusterfucked our ability to travel from California.

I’d known Grandma was in hospice, but meh. She’d damn-near died a handful of other times (she liked to have mini-strokes at weddings) and was somehow still kicking. And family members were confident she’d be around for the following summer’s reunion.

I’d missed my chance to hug her one last time.

Maybe it was the intense sunlight that beat down through the part of my hair and fried my brain. Maybe I was just feeling badly for squandering her, never again to feel her soft cheek. Being in a churchyard was also a great reminder that, as a former fornicator, no matter what I do, I’m definitely going to capital-H Hell — Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Bother to Give to the Collection Plate.

More than 70 family members — and a few handfuls of close friends — bore witness to the words. Public speaking is a private hell of mine, ’cause I visibly quake with fear. But I stepped forward anyway, not wanting to miss the chance to profess my love for M. Kathleen Miller more clearly than I ever had.

I cleared my throat and waited a beat for the perfect comedic timing. Everyone looked and listened.

“Hi, I’m Tim’s daughter, Lindy. Of all of the grandkids, I was Grandma’s favorite, since I had the most babies!”

Derrrrrp. Then, I said something inane about how much I loved her soup.

No one laughed at the joke.

One of the mixed blessings of holidaying with the same people your whole conscious life is that you pretty much know their inner monologues. Narcissist, one of my cousins was definitely thinking.

That cousin didn’t mouth it, but still.

Who makes a joke at a fucking funeral-type thing — and expects people to find it funny, no less?

I crawled back into the cornhole from whence I came. Others had nicer, more Grandma-centric anecdotes. Dumbass, I flogged myself.

Why am I like this? If Grandma had been standing there, she would’ve said, “well, THAT wasn’t too smart.” And she’d be right.

If I had a re-do, here’s what I’d say.

Good afternoon, family and friends.

I don’t give a shit whether Mary Kathleen Platte Miller was cremated and scattered after she all but renounced her faith. Hell, I wouldn’t care if she’d run off with Ozzy Osbourne after Ham died, performing satanic bat rituals. Or if every stock pot of her soup were secretly made with leftover bat meat, to teach us all a passive-aggressive, Depression-era lesson of some kind. I loved Grandma so much, I’m eating bat soup for the rest of my days. And you should, too.

Grandma went to freaking Heaven! That’s Heaven, with a capital H. Anyone who says otherwise can lick my bat.

And then — from thro’ the cornfield next to that cemetery for “real” Catholics — Grandma’s soul flapped up into the Firmament. I just know it.

I won’t see her there, but I’ll keep that little tidbit to myself.

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*ETA: Being told we actually didn’t scatter Grandma’s ashes. We buried her in her urn like good Catholics! There was a big crowd and I couldn’t really see. But it’s better to tell it this way. Sorry, Grandma.*