Almost Heaven (16 page)

I asked the man from the funeral home if he had ever seen this type of thing before. “I've seen just about everything. You couldn't surprise me anymore. But your mother went real peaceful. I can tell that looking at her face. I think she felt loved in the end.”

I covered my face with my hands and lost it. Right there in front of the couch, I knelt and out came a flood of emotion that burst and filled that house. The outburst scared and shocked me, not only the intensity, but the duration.

You come into this world naked and you go out of it the same way. But in all of that time, from my birth to that day of watching my mother voluntarily give up the right to take a breath, I had never felt alone. I had always felt that God was walking with the two of us, helping us claw our way back onto dry ground. I could have had a million friends and they could all have been around me with their hands on my shoulder, and it wouldn't have amounted to a hill of beans. I was alone in the world and I knew it.

* * *

They carried my mother out of the home she loved in a body bag on top of a rolling gurney that left little marks in the dust on the wood floor. I was prepared to watch them take her away, but not like that.

When everyone was gone and I had told Callie for the last time that I didn't need any company, I went back to my mother's room. Her underclothes had been tossed on the floor. I picked them up and put them in the closet and closed the door. It felt like a final slap, a reckless and insulting end to the day. “That's life,” she would have said.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what to do. I found a pad of paper where she had made a to-do list. It must have been years in the making. I remembered to call my boss and told him what had happened. He offered to give me a few days off, but I said it would be better if I worked until the funeral on Thursday.

The pup with no name kept me company. I didn't have the wherewithal to write
dog food
on the list, so I gave him some chili with corn bread crumbled into it, and he gobbled it down and licked the plastic cereal bowl. It was a choice I would come to regret in the middle of the night, but after all I had been through over the weekend, it seemed like a small price to pay for a little companionship.

I shut the dog up in the laundry room with a bowl of water and some dry food I borrowed from a neighbor while I went to work. He was whining before I ever got the door shut.

At work, people were kind and there was a card signed by everybody in the office that said
Sympathy
on the front of it. One woman from the newsroom who I knew was a believer wrote, “I'm praying for you, Billy. May God sustain you through this trial. Psalm 23.”

In the days to come, I got a few cards telling me what my mother meant to the people in the community. I was surprised at how many people were at the funeral. My boss from work. Beulah, who ran the beauty shop. Sheriff Preston and his wife. My pastor from the Bible church welcomed everyone, and we sang about coming to the garden alone. Mama would have liked that. The pastor spoke about the blessed hope we have in Jesus. Then he asked me to come and say a few words. I would not have done it for any other human being on the planet, not in a million years. But she would have loved seeing me up there.

“I want to thank you all for coming. Mama would have liked it that she brought you all together.

“My mother did not have an easy life. It felt like she moved from one storm to another. Some of you know we lived along Buffalo Creek down in Logan County when that dam broke. She lived through that. She helped Daddy through his illness. She saw a son die in Vietnam. She lost her parents early on.

“And she always told me, when her mind was right, that the struggle of our lives was not a sign that we were failing or losing. The struggle was a sign that there was still life. If you stopped struggling, that's when you needed to be worried. The fight meant God was helping you keep going one more day even if you didn't think you could make it.

“I believe that, even when I don't.”

Macel Preston wiped away a few tears and I felt my chin quiver. But I held it together long enough to finish.

“The other thing she would have wanted you to know is that no matter how hard things get, God is there. I can see glimpses of that even in her worst days. I can see the ways that Jesus was working all of this out, even though it's hard to make sense of it.

“Mama loved me to the end in the only ways she knew how. Even through the sickness of her mind, she was caring for me. On the day before she died, we passed some kids who were selling mangy puppies. She picked one of them up and wouldn't let go. I had to buy it so the kids wouldn't call the police on us.”

Everybody laughed.

“I think Mama knew I would need something in the house after she was gone. She was providing for me even in the darkest hours.”

I paused and gathered the pieces of paper I had torn from my mother's to-do pad. With tears in my eyes I said, “I loved my mama. And she loved me. I don't think a son could ask for more than that.”

I started to leave the lectern and then stopped. People wiped at their eyes and stared straight ahead. I put my hand on the casket and looked at them. “Someone came up to me last night and said they were sorry that I had lost my mother. And I appreciate that. But I want to set the record straight. I haven't lost her. I know exactly where she is. One day I'll see her again.”

* * *

Macel came to me after the graveside service and clutched my hand in hers. “Your mother would have been so proud of all you said. It was just beautiful, Billy. I'm so sorry for the pain you've been through.”

“We went through some deep waters together. I'm glad she's at peace. And I'm glad I know where she is.”

She nodded. “The Lord has something good in store for you. I can just feel it.”

“Feels like I'm turning a page, Mrs. Preston. I don't know what's on the other side, and I know it's going to be hard, but I think I'm ready.”

“I'm going to send Hadley over with a casserole or two in the coming days.”

“I look forward to it, ma'am. I appreciate your husband more than I can say. Compared to some lawmen I've been acquainted with, he seems to have a real heart.”

“He does. He's a good man, Billy. Pray for him. He needs to know the Lord.”

I nodded. “What's holding him back?”

“The past. The future. He's a wandering soul with a lot on his mind. I've had the church praying for him for years, but there doesn't seem to be much going on. I have enough faith to trust the Lord is going to do something there, too.”

“If there's one thing I've learned, it's that God has a way of working on his own timetable. And it usually is a lot different from ours.”

“That's the truth, Billy. It surely is.”

“I'll be praying for your husband,” I said.

“I appreciate that. And I'll be praying that God is close to you in this time.”

I went back to my car after everybody left, but I just sat there and watched the workers lower the casket down and then cover the hole with dirt. After they finished and made their way from the cemetery, I got out and took my mandolin over to her grave and played one last time. Music had been such a part of our lives and I knew she would have liked it.

I believe that absent from the body is present with the Lord. The pastor back on the creek had said that after the flood, and his words rang true to me all those years later. If you are “in Christ,” the moment you take your last breath is the moment you are in the very presence of God. So I really wasn't playing for her. I was playing for the memory of her. The memories of all the years and the hard times and the choices I'd made and the way we both had to deal with them. Wave after wave of memories swept over me and carried me to unexpected places along the creek bank of my life. A restaurant where my mother let me order food we couldn't afford, my first day of school in Dogwood when she trailed me to the classroom—as unable to let go of me as I was of her—sitting together near the empty grave at my father's funeral, and the day she gave me the news of Heather's wedding.

Before the sickness took over her mind and body, I had seen her at the point of despair only a handful of times. She was always such a woman of faith, someone who believed that God was who he said he was and would do what he said he would do. But that day I remember her face fell and there seemed like something had bittered up her soul.

I had just come home from an overnight shift at the radio station. It was only part-time, but I was happy to be doing something I really enjoyed. I sat in one of the kitchen chairs and she sat next to me and folded her hands across the table as if in prayer.

“Billy, Heather's mother called me today.”

“Really? What for?”

“She wanted to let us know some news.”

I nodded. My mother had a flair for the dramatic, and this pregnant pause was one of her devices to drag me into a story. “News?” I finally said.

She rubbed her hands, pursed her lips, and finally let it escape. “Heather is getting married this weekend. Down at the rose garden in Ritter Park. Her mother wanted you to know. I'm so sorry, Billy.”

I swallowed hard and scratched at something on my neck. “Married, huh? Who to?”

“She didn't say. It came up all of a sudden, I guess. I don't think they knew she was even serious about anybody. I don't think it was anybody from around here.”

I tried to laugh. “Well, I don't know why you'd think I would be upset. We were friends, but it was never anything more than that.”

She kept looking into my eyes. “Is that the truth?”

I got up and went to the sink and ran the water. I washed my hands for no particular reason other than to put my back to my mother so I wouldn't have to endure her eyes.

“Actually, I'm real happy for her, Mama.”

“Say what?” she said.

I dried my hands on a paper towel and turned. “I'm glad she found somebody. It was always my hope that she'd be happy. My biggest prayer was that she would know Jesus. But I also prayed that she'd find somebody who would be good to her. Maybe that's who she's found.”

“Well, nobody knows much about him. I think it was somebody she met on a trip. I doubt it will last.”

“I hope you're wrong. What God joins together should stay together.” I tossed the paper towel into a Foodland bag on the floor. “I can't say I'm all that surprised. She was always unpredictable.” I put a hand on Mama's shoulder. “Thanks for telling me. I'm going to get some sleep.”

“Billy?” she said when I hit the hallway. “If you need to talk, I'm here.”

“Thanks, Mama.”

I smiled at her and walked back to my room and shut the door. I took off my shoes and jacket and collapsed into bed. A swarm of memories collected around me like bees to a hive. Memories that I wanted to both forget and cherish. I knew from the day I sat down beside her on that bus that I had no chance of winning her heart. And something was tearing at the soul of that girl. That she would run into the arms of someone who could give her some comfort from life's disappointments was expected after all she'd been through.

I lay there on the pillow, the sun coming up over the hills and bringing warmth and light. My body was exhausted, and there was a deep ache that only comes when hope and love meet a brick wall.

“Lord, you know why Heather is running,” I prayed. “And you know the heart of this man she's going to marry. I release her to you and ask you to draw her to yourself. Bring her into a relationship with you, and do the same for her husband. Show them there's no better place to live than in your will. I don't know how you're going to do it, Lord, but I pray you would.”

I guess some people wondered over the years if I even had those kinds of feelings because of the type of person I am. Solitary. Working alone most of the time. That's why I'm writing it down. Those feelings have been there and come up now and then at unexpected times. I guess that's part of the struggle. Part of living in a world filled with hurts and disappointments.

I patted the loose dirt on the grave and picked up a flower arrangement that had fallen. Then I said good-bye to my mother for the last time and headed home.

11

The Sunday after Mama's funeral, I took the pup to Ritter Park. I had an ample supply of Stewarts hot dogs as I looked for the kids. When I couldn't find them, my heart grew heavy. I opened a can of tennis balls and the pup chased one around for a while, bumping it with his nose and rolling over it with his paws.

I picked him up and headed for the rose garden. This time of year its beauty was masked, but the meticulous gardening still stirred me. I could see the expanse of the park from here, the fields and playgrounds and trees that seemed as old as time itself. I spotted three kids with a box at the end of the park and hurried to reach them.