Oh for heaven's sake!  I've never heard of anything so ridiculous.  Somebody
should have a strong talk with that granddaughter and set her straight.  If
your wife wanted her to have something from the flowers and had told her so,
that would have been different.  But she was way out of line.
Gwen

Maybe it wasn't so bad after all, John.   After my mothers funeral (just
before Ida was dx'd) the funeral home told us that all the flowers were
thrown into the trash, and that if we liked any of the arrangements, we
should take them home or give them out to whomever wanted them.   We did
that.

Of course it may have been because my mom was due to be cremated, and the
internment didn't take place for a while after that.    So the flowers did
not necessarily accompany the remains to the grave site, (where they still
ultimately end up in the trash anyway).

We brought just a small bouquet with us at the time of her internment which
was a couple of months later, in the springtime.

An interesting note:  The adult daycare center Ida attended had a deal with
some local funeral home, to give them all the flowers that were still good,
but were headed for the trash.   The old folks had a lot of fun making
flower arrangements from them.

I thought it was a wonderful way of recycling perfectly good flowers that
would otherwise have ceased their usefulness.   Ida came home with a bunch
of flowers every now and then, which we would make a big fuss over, putting
them in a pretty vase on the table.   Ida loved flowers.

Wow, there is a girl who needs a talking to. Even if she was naive
enough to think she got to keep the flowers, once she found out the way
things worked, she should NOT have made an upsetting fuss - very rude
and inappropriate.

When my mom passed on when I was 17, I did get some flowers and living
plant arrangements were intended just for me - but they were sent to
our HOUSE, not to the funeral home. One pretty little arrangement I
recall with much fondness was sent by a girlhood friend and was in a
nice china teacup with saucer, which I still treasure 31 years later.

I've never heard of flowers at the funeral home going anywhere but to
the cemetery, unless one wished to donate some of the cut flowers or
non-funeral-y ones to a hospital or other institution.

Its no different than making a donation in memory of the deceased, when
a loved one of a coworker, friend, neighbour etc. has passed on - you
are doing it to comfort the living, but they don't get the money!!!

Mary G.

John,  

Time has away of moving so fast as we get older.  
Please tell me if you were originally posting as the piano guy?  I had
been lurking then.for quite some time.

Florence