What to Wear to a Funeral?
Nonsense advice from a teenage girl
If she could’ve attended her own funeral she would’ve come draped in a smile crested with Gatorade on her upper lip. Dressed in a plaid button down paired with coffee colored khakis and concrete covered converse that she’d had since 6th grade. But instead she rested in a silver and gold crested urn placed in the middle of the congregation for the hundreds of people who were in attendance to see.
Now I’m sure you’re thinking well what the fuck? There’s nothing funny about a funeral. But when you’re at the tender age of 17 with greasy unwashed hair and liquor stained breath you kinda try to find the funny in as much as you can.
When I heard about her death it felt like a bolt of lightening stunned my spine. She would’ve been in tears from the laughter that would’ve consumed her if she could have seen my reaction because honestly there was nothing shocking at all despite how sad it was. She like too many teens battled with detrimental drug use for several years.
Funerals are funny. Not because someone died, obviously. But because no one tells a 17 year old girl what to wear to a funeral. Now don’t get me wrong, I own my fair share of black clothing…I’m a 90’s kid for Satan’s sake.
Finding just the right shade to compliment the dark circles under my eyes turned out to be quite a task. When I went over my friend’s house I was honestly thrilled to see that she was struggling with the same issue. Literally clothes were sprawled across her bedroom and partly out her door by the time we went through our entire wardrobe. We just sighed and looked at each other. On a day that’s supposed to bring tears to our eyes we stopped and laughed.
“What the Hell do you wear to a funeral?”
She asked her dad as we stumbled downstairs in the best we could find. His only response, “Not that!”
So we turned back around still chuckling at our failure to know proper “funeral etiquette” to the stomps of our combat boots that were just “not a good look” according to her dad.
So we showed up to the funeral wearing soft smiles on our face when we greeted her mother, and quiet shoes when we walked in thirty minutes late because of our clothing dilemma. Funerals are funny, maybe dying isn’t, but funerals sure as hell are, and maybe that’s where I’ll be going for thinking so.
What did I wear to the funeral is probably what you’re all thinking. It was a black leather skirt (it was knee length don’t fret) and a black and white blouse that weren’t quite the right shade of black. I hated that outfit. Even more so when I saw that of the hundreds of people in attendance nearly half had rushed straight from work/school and never even bothered to change. And they looked great wearing their soft smiles and tears when need be.
When my friend and I left together we couldn’t help but laugh because we were late, we were late because really, what the fuck are you supposed to wear to a funeral?
