Making fun of the now dead is called a "wake"..
It's mostly a Northern European and Irish thing, I'm both, and I will NEVER apologise for remembering somebody by talking about them good, bad, or both... because it just means I can't forget the impact they made on my life.
I had a great aunt named Louise. She was half and half Scottish/Irish and a total pisspot. When her sister and brother in laws were almost gone, she'd get up on the tables at the local pub and dance.... then toast them, then mock them, then cry, drink, wash, rinse, repeat.
Sorrow has so many pathways to go.
When she died, I sobbed so much after the phone call. She was my grittiest family member ever, but as a 15,16,17 year old kind as light to me. And I always visited her every week or two... without fail. See, she was so burly that no adults or my own siblings could approach her... not that my siblings wanted to. But I remembered and still do to this day Louise coming with us and her much younger son William to Lake Michigan, and we'd drink Faygo.... eat cheese sticks... try not to die from the undertow while floating in semi-trailer innertubes... and Louise was cranky but happy.
She was a beautiful woman. Her husband treated her like a slave and she never got her licence until she was like 55... then she had William get a permit to drive her when he was 13... Jim the hubby had died years before.
She didn't need pity...
It's mostly a Northern European and Irish thing, I'm both, and I will NEVER apologise for remembering somebody by talking about them good, bad, or both... because it just means I can't forget the impact they made on my life.
I had a great aunt named Louise. She was half and half Scottish/Irish and a total pisspot. When her sister and brother in laws were almost gone, she'd get up on the tables at the local pub and dance.... then toast them, then mock them, then cry, drink, wash, rinse, repeat.
Sorrow has so many pathways to go.
When she died, I sobbed so much after the phone call. She was my grittiest family member ever, but as a 15,16,17 year old kind as light to me. And I always visited her every week or two... without fail. See, she was so burly that no adults or my own siblings could approach her... not that my siblings wanted to. But I remembered and still do to this day Louise coming with us and her much younger son William to Lake Michigan, and we'd drink Faygo.... eat cheese sticks... try not to die from the undertow while floating in semi-trailer innertubes... and Louise was cranky but happy.
She was a beautiful woman. Her husband treated her like a slave and she never got her licence until she was like 55... then she had William get a permit to drive her when he was 13... Jim the hubby had died years before.
She didn't need pity...
