Home Coming
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Collette woke to storms that Thursday morning, the morning of Mrs. Pretzel’s funeral. Collette wondered how it would be there. So many people would come, there would surely be hardly room for everyone to attend. It was difficult knowing how to be around friends who had just lost their mother at such a young age, a concept Collette couldn’t grasp. It was one of those times Collette thought it might be best just to keep quiet.
Collette spent several minutes of the morning sitting on the balcony reading Pride & Prejudice as the rain fell steadily, just like the morning Mrs. Pretzel had passed.
Her funeral had been so very good. Bob came over and hugged OLeif and Collette as they waited for everyone to arrive; he seemed to be having trouble. Mercy was handling herself so well, and smiled upon hearing “I Can Only Imagine” over the sound system. Collette walked over to hug her.
“I know – you love this song,” Collette said to her.
“Yes, it was my mom’s favorite…” She sighed a little. “I’m going to go play a bit.”
She set down her Bible and water bottle and walked over to the piano and played several hymns. She looked rather like a queen there in her white skirt and black blouse, her head held high and sitting there so courageously. Collette was very proud of her.
As the church soon filled to capacity, Mercy went below to the basement with the rest of the family. When there was room left only to stand, Mercy, OLeif, and Kitts opened the “home coming” ceremony, as they put it, with “Be Thou My Vision”. Collette thought that she had never quite heard Mercy sing so beautifully.
Then Mrs. Pretzel had a letter read, which she had begun writing on May 11th, thanking certain devoted people in the congregation for their specific help and prayers and witness to her over her life. It was followed with two short sharings from two close friends, and then the Gospel message delivered by Pastor Hileman.
A slide show closed the ceremony and the family was escorted out to lead the procession to the cemetery. OLeif and Collette were obliged to leave but Carrie and Mom helped prepare the lunch for the family and friends upon return.
Collette was happy with all that had taken place there. What touched her the most, perhaps, was seeing Mercy (looking so very lovely) walk to the front of the church before the ceremony and blow a kiss to her mom – a picture sitting there on the casket – as she walked by.
And as everyone walked out, the sun shone brightly over the church. The rain had stopped during the ceremony.
That evening at the coffee house, where Mercy, Catalina, Bob, and several others were already gathered… OLeif the Skullsplitter and Joseph the Blue-Eyed discussed various items, and laughed their heads off from time to time: of Bandannas Barbecue’s secret menu item – home fried donut holes, and of how one of Joseph’s professors once speculated that Noah used power tools to build the Ark, of Joseph’s Turkish fellow student-friend and janitor who found a glass hash pipe while cleaning his dorm, and of things such as wanting to always keep a little bit of belly. (Both grasped their stomachs at this point, (speaking fondly), something about not being capable of parting with their spare tires…)