I am going to state upfront this is not one of my finest moments, it is pretty damn embarrassing but there is a lesson to be learned in my misfortune.
Yesterday, was a crazy busy day, work was insane. I spent all day making reservations, doing amenities, normal concierge duties. I was trying to leave close to my scheduled time because I had a visitation to go to (a dear friend’s mother in law passed). The visitation was until 7pm at 6:20pm I was setting a suite for a surprise party. I was able to finish everything and quickly made it to the funeral home. I get there, I still had my name tag on, very frazzled, I walk inside and they ask me who am I here to see? I freeze, dear in headlights, I don’t know her name – I was there as support for my friend and I never checked the name. The photos were so small I couldn’t see who they were. My friend had texted me before I went saying she was at work, and I didn’t see her husband anywhere. I of course panic and tell the gentleman to hang on. I stood in the corner and had to look it up on Facebook. Yes, I went to a visitation and didn’t know who I was paying my respects to, it gets better.
I finally figure it out and I walked into the wrong door, only to realize they were all in the same room. I being the good Catholic went around to the other bodies (there were 3) and said prayers at each one because I felt like I was crashing their visitation/wake/funeral. I forgot to mention this was an African American Funeral Home, I am very white, I know they were all talking about the crazy white lady who crashed grandma’s or grandpa’s funeral. After I paid my respects to each person, I asked if there was a card drop. The nice gentleman said no but they would make sure they would give it to the family. I had to pull my phone back out because I didn’t know how to spell her name. I am apologizing the whole time, he told me it was okay, I didn’t have to apologize. We talked a couple minutes and he said to me, “You’re Catholic.” My response, “Yep, it is what you do.”
I didn’t think much of it at the time, it was more I need to get there and do this because I said I was going to show up. It was in the car on the way home did I realize how insane that whole situation was when I was talking to my mom. I did send my friend a text if people are talking about the crazy white lady tomorrow, it was me. One of my coworkers asked me if I made it to the visitation yesterday. I then retold the story for my coworkers, they were both like, oh they were totally talking about you and why did you go to each person? My response was Catholic guilt.
Moral of the story: double check the name of who you are paying your respects to or you might be known as the crazy white lady who crashes funerals.
Who Are You Calling Crafty? 