RICHMOND, Va.— Local man Brent Gould shocked and confused all those in attendance at the funeral of his recently deceased friend when he opened his eulogy by reading the dictionary definition of death, multiple sobbing sources confirmed.
“That was a disaster. When I finished nobody clapped or anything, and everyone has been trying to avoid being seen with me. Even my wife and parents,” said the offending speaker, 28-year-old Brent Gould. “And I realize now that I should not have used the same approach I used for my best man’s speech at my brother’s wedding to give my best friend’s eulogy. It didn’t work with death the way it worked with love.I get that now. To be fair, knowing that death is defined as, ‘the action or fact of dying or being killed’ did give me some closure, personally.””
Opinions of friends and family members regarding the incident ranged from incredulous to indifferent.
“Out of all of Charlie’s friends, Brent would not have been my first choice to give the remarks,” admits Marilyn Fountain, mother of the deceased. “But it was my son’s dying wish. Maybe it was the head trauma from the car accident that caused him to make such a foolish request, or maybe it was just to piss us all off one more time. I’ll never know. The worst part to me wasn’t even the dictionary, it was the fact he stopped at least five times to vape, and then spilled water into the coffin.”
A spokesperson from the funeral home says eulogists are often disappointing and offers an upgraded package for anyone interested.
“We at A Farm Upstate Funeral Co pride ourselves on our comprehensive service packages. Among these are eulogy writing and editing by professional writers who are well versed in the art of the farewell,” said funeral home director Madeline Wabash. “I’ve confirmed with our team that these services were made available, but were not utilized by the client. I think that was abundantly clear given he sounded like a freshman in college trying to cram a final paper.”
At press time, Gould insisted that he would take no further questions, stating, “if you’ll excuse me, I need to go edit my toast for my sister’s cesarean section next week.”