Laughing at a funeral.
My mate Gav died nine years ago this month. He had motor neurone disease, which did him in rather slowly and piecemeal - he'd be able to walk a bit less one day, or he wouldn't be able to pick up his guitar, or - horror of horrors - be unable to open a tin of beer.
Dead, phone call from girlfriend, funeral, arrangements, got a wedding (no seriously) that Friday, want anything brought over?, no fine, right see you there. Wore my bike jacket (seemed appropriate, to the funeral of another biker mate), 12-hole para boots and Royal Stewart kilt. Ancient Royal Stewart is really my tartan, and rather more subdued than the fire-engine red of Royal Stewart. Ah well, needs must. Many other mourners commented that they'd wished they'd thought to wear a kilt. "Oh well, maybe next time then" ho ho ho.
Back to Gav's parents after, with many relatives and friends. I notice some of the aunts and uncles are looking rather askance at my crimson kilt, and some of the odd friends I'm hanging about with. There is a certain element of eye-dabbing and sniffling there, and public show of grief. Us? No.

I'm amid a group of old uni friends of Gav and I (we went to RGIT together) telling the story of him dropping the step-through moped at a petrol station while wearing the full leathers and full-face lid - it's a teensy bit untrue, the petrol station wasn't really crowded but Gav will have to take that up with me when we next meet. Raucous laughter at poor old Gav, on his backside in a patch of spilled diesel. This is how we remember him, not as some dead guy but as our friend, who we shared beers and pizzas with, laughed with, played tricks on and had tricks played on us by, and who would most certainly have been up our end of the garden. *Lots* of glowering from the aunt-and-uncle contingent, and it only got worse as the afternoon went on and we swapped Gav tales.

Guilty laughs? Hell no. Not even when a spot of summer thunder prompted several remarks of "FFS, give a kid a new toy..."
(gordonjcp, Sat 24 Jul 2010, 0:41, 2 replies)

*click*
For that last sentance (oh, ok....for the rest of it too).
(ninja chinchilla, Sat 24 Jul 2010, 17:39, closed)

*clicks*

(god_is_a_ghoti Carpe Deum., Sun 25 Jul 2010, 9:43, closed)