What is it with funerals?

Funerals are sad solemn events. Funerals are what we'd like to avoid even though we know that we are destined for one. I know I would do anything to get out of attending one, but I am a good girl and go and pay my respects. And yet, as I sit there, trying to not look at the dead, I notice there is life in all its varied forms swirling on around me.
I met my husband at a funeral. After you say that aloud, what else is there to say?
I was once in a car accident on the way from funeral home to graveside. An accident that had me in an ambulance and racing toward the hospital. I had only complained that my back was stiff and before I could blink I was strapped onto a board and carted off. Of course, the accident happened right in front of the firehouse and I guess it was a boring day. I did get to ride in an ambulance and witnessed an emergency room from a prone position. It's amazing how nurses can get you undressed without moving you. Magick, Perhaps? Then the wait till the doctor sees you and proclaims you have wiplash, gives you instructions and is gone in a flapping of curtain. I dressed, had a question, searched the doctor down and posed my question to him. He looked blank till I introduced myself and he blurted "Oh! I didn't recognise you with your clothes on!' Talk about heads turning.
This same accident brought its own flavor of humor. My husband and I, my sister and parents were all in the same car (my father was driving) and after we were broadsided, my sister flies out of the car and attacks the other car with her purse. The driver wisely rolled up her windows and locked the door.
Which brings me to my next dramtic sister funeral story.
My mother died and my sister handled everything, not bothering to tell me a thing till two days after my mother died. She did call all the other relatives though and told them, warning each and everyone NOT to tell me. There's more to this story but I'll save that for another time.
There we are at the viewing, my sister commanding center stage beside my mother's coffin. I swear it looked like the Price is Right. You know how those women stand beside the prizes and do that all encompassing hand gesture, palm up as their arm sweeps the length of the prize. There stood my sister using that same gesture as if the coffin was a chest freezer that could be yours should you guess the correct price.
The relatives (by this time furious at my sister for my sake) did their visit with the dead bit, nodded to my sister and then retreated to the far end of the room. There was a lull and suddenly sister shrieks "Johnny! Johnny! (her husband whom I NEVER heard her call Johnny) Mommy doesn't have her earrings on! She'll never get into heaven without her EARRINGS!" (trust me when I say it was going to take more than earrings to get my mother into heaven) Johnny springs into action. stumpfs off (big guy) and in no time, there is a flurry as the corpse dresser woman runs back in with a pair of earrings, assuring my mother's enterance into heaven. I have LOTS of earrings!!! So many I can probably get into heaven and have earrings left over to take a dozen people with me.
Why am I thinking about funerals. I lost a cousin last week and her service was friday. Same relatives but in a new uproar about my sister. An Aunt called to tell me about the cousin and while we were talking she mentioned the three other relatives who died. Seems my sister was supposed to let me know but didn't. Now they are really angry. One uncle ripped my sister a new one, most cousins were polite but restrained, one cousin told me she had a 'dirty little secret' which only turned out that she couldn't look at my sister. An Aunt said that everyone was on my side and I can't seem to get them to understand that I don't care. I don't care how my sister acted and I don't want them getting all upset about it.
So my sister shows up, comes nowhere near the relatives but sits at our table at the restaurant afterwards, turns her back to me and emotes to her end of the table. Oh the looks that she didn't see. So much eye rolling they reminded me of bingo balls bouncing around their wire cage. However since it was a favorite aunt who lost her daughter we were all polite. No sense stressing the Aunt.
So what does all of this have to do with anything?
It has shown me just how loved I am. I have spent a great deal of my time feeling unwanted, unloved, just tolerated and now I find out that I was wrong. Whatta ya know about that? People actually do like me and aren't just putting on a polite face.
Will wonders ever cease?