I wonder how the person your sister spoke to feels about what she said. If it had been me hearing it, I suspect I would have thought very badly of her for talking about something personal to a stranger, especially something negative about a family member who was also grieving, and especially at a funeral. If anyone has come out of this badly, it will be your sister, destroying her own reputation by her own words.
At a wedding recently I was "powdering my nose" (the ladies loo is THE BEST place for wedding gossip) when a girl I didn't recognise announced to me and everyone in the ladies, "I got dumped as chief bridesmaid... oh, but it's OK, I'm not angry or anything." yeah, not much!
My opinion of her went right to the bottom. Not impressed. She was very chatty with me, asked me all sorts of questions (which I was careful to not answer).
When I got the chance a fortnight later, I asked the mother of the bride (my best friend) what it had all been about. Turned out the girl MAY have recognised me, she used to go to our church when she was in her teens. At that time she and the bride had been good friends and used to say, "let's be each other's chief bridesmaids!" As you do when you're 14. But at 34, especially when you've been married and didn't ask your friend from the past to be chief bridesmaid, you don't go on about it!
Honestly!
My reaction, and that of others (I've since heard) was NOT favourable at all to that girl. She did go on to say even more later on, which only made people more embarrassed to be hearing it.
The good thing - she mostly stayed in the loo the whole time (apart from emerging to have yet another drink).
The bride has since heard the story and is strong enough to be amused by it, rather than distressed at having her wedding ruined (not at all - she's got her man and she's happy).
I really don't like funerals. When I think of my mother I prefer to think of the times we talked, the time she was minding easy child while watering her garden in the summer evening and would occasionally flick the hose so easy child's hands could get wet. By the time husband & I emerged from doing the wash-up, easy child and her stroller were absolutely saturated and my mother was giggling like a naughty kid. husband snapped a photo before she saw us, it's one of my favourites. The funeral - I don't like to think about it at all. My brother took charge and wouldn't let us have much input, got a lot of things wrong and bluffs his way through about it. One of my sisters was angry with him about his need to control it all, but for me - it's a summer night, the hose, and a dripping wet easy child.
Marg