The Last Laugh

As I mentioned earlier, my family has recently experienced the loss of our brother in death. He was a big man--big physically, big in his heart, big in his laughter and love of life. He was an irrepressible story-teller. There is no deep philosophical meaning or spiritual truth in the following; my brother just loved a good tale, and so I'll share this one!

After the memorial service in a distant city, we were instructed to caravan to the burial grounds a couple of miles away. The car in which I was riding was just a bit delayed in getting away from the mortuary parking lot, so we were near the end of the procession rather than immediately behind the funeral car. As we drove up that street, we found parking at the curb had been marked off with orange cones stenciled "Funeral", and we fell in behind the long line of cars waiting there.

We soon turned off that street and moved away from the busier area. "They must be going around to a back way to avoid the traffic," we decided. Around curves, over hills, into valleys, around more curves--and we found ourselves in the backwoods. "Can this be right?" we began to wonder, but yes, we could still see the hearse leading the long procession.

Finally, after a number of miles, the driver said, "This is just wrong!" and pulled off at a little junction in the roadway. Immediately another family member pulled up beside us in his car. "I just got a call from my sister," he told us. " 'Where are you?' I told her about twenty cars back from the hearse, and she said, 'Oh no, you're not! We're at the cemetery and you're following the wrong procession!"

With the aid of our nephew's GPS, we found our way back--around the curves, over the hills, and through the valleys--to the appointed cemetery where everyone was waiting for us with the grace and good humor one would expect from this man's family.

"Do you want to wait?" the funeral director had asked the family when we failed to show up in the few minutes it would take to drive from the mortuary to the cemetery. "Of course! They're his sisters!" But we still didn't arrive. "How long do you want to wait?" the director asked finally. "Until they get here!"

And so, we decided, our brother had the last laugh. He would have enjoyed that immensely!

MaryMartha
(All rights reserved)

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Different--and Unchanged

Email: mrymrtha@gmail.com