Isn't it Ironic?

As an English teacher, I am always looking for examples of irony to explain the concept to my students. This weekend was a whopper of an example! My cousin's husband died last week of pancreatic cancer. He had been fighting the good fight for the past two years, and looked great a month ago at the holiday celebrations we had; however, he went downhill really quickly and succumbed on Wednesday morning. His funeral service was held on Saturday afternoon. I am never comfortable at funerals. I prefer the LDS version where the service is littered with humor and memories. This was a Southern Baptist/Catholic version of fear and a spiritual version of "You better be good for goodness sakes!" kinda funeral. Also, because her husband was Hispanic, over half the service was in Spanish. (I think those were the Catholic parts!) Anyhow, after several songs, homilies, prayers, etc. were spoken, the minister began his sermon. The topic? YOU BETTER BE READY(HALLELUJAH) TO MEET YOUR MAKER(HALLELUJAH) CUZ HE CAN (HALLELUJAH) TAKE YOU (HALLELUJAH) WHENEVER HE WANTS (HALLELUJAH)!!! To prove his point, he remarked that the Lord was not ready for him yet, because he had suffered two strokes and he was still around. (BTW: My mother and I were counting how many times he could say HALLELUJAH in one minute: an impressive 27 times!) NOW LET US BOW OUR HEADS (HALLELUJAH) AND PRAY FOR JULIAN'S SOUL! I bowed my head and strained to listen, thinking that he was speaking softly because he was praying. I then heard people rushing to the front of the chapel (WOW...Lots of people wanna get saved today!) and then looked up....the minister had fallen down. Here is the irony...He had a stroke! This time, the Lord wanted him home. My mom says that the minister reminded God that he was still here...It is sad, but definitely ironic. (I also felt like I was on an episode of Six Feet Under!) The funeral ended abruptly. One I will not forget!