Please come and help me with the funeral,” my best friend said.
”I`ll be on the next plane,” I promised.
Guin`s father had died just minutes before, and she was alone with her mother in Texas. I hung up the phone, at first unable to plan what to do next. I cried, and then I took a shower.
Three hours later, my parents took me to the airport, where I kissed them goodbye, casting a last longing look over my shoulder that translated, ”Don`t change while I`m away from you.”
In the window seat, I stifled my sobs with queer jerks and tremors. I had never felt so alone. I prayed I`d see a familiar face.
Changing planes in Atlanta, I scanned the faces. Passing strangers looked the way I felt: tired, unsure of where they were going. Intent on reaching our destinations, we ignored each other.
Guin and her mother met me at the gate. In shock, we made small talk. We pretended that our mutual loss of Elmer Splawn had not been the first tremor of a continuing, emotional earthquake.
The funeral was still ahead. Casseroles and pies heralded its coming. We did not partake of those early dishes; we had no appetite.
We curled our hair and waited for the white limousine to call for us and take us to that pew where we would join with other friends of our father to say farewell. For through the years, Guin and I, best friends for life, have learned to share our daddies and mamas, becoming each other`s sister in spirit.
My composure slipped the moment we took our place before Elmer`s coffin. His profile was unfamiliar and undeniable. The earthquake came in full force to rock me, and the plea that was born in the voyage to Texas resurged in a rocking force. ”Oh, to see a familiar face,” I prayed again, to replace this sudden appearance of death.
The preacher rose, a country boy who had nettled me on Sundays past with talk that women should wear only skirts and not work outside the home. I raised my watery gaze to suffer through his eulogy. This man, who had oft-times spoken so unfeelingly, now stood with tears in his eyes, confessing to us with humble grace that Elmer had loved him when he was unlovable.
”Over the past 15 years, I made every mistake a preacher could make, but this brother stood by me, and when he lent his support, it was 100 percent. He did not say what he did not mean, and when Mr. Splawn made a promise, this old farmer kept his word.”
The preacher went on to talk about Elmer`s life, his love for his wife, his pride in his daughter. His confession that he had also known what it meant to love Elmer steadied me in that way that only those who have walked through the valley of the shadow with strangers who become friends can understand.
I listened, slipping off in memory to see Elmer once again in his corn field, to sit beside him on his front porch while the Texas wind dried my freshly washed hair.
In those early days when Elmer`s hand first started shaking from Parkinson`s disease, I would reach and cover his hand with my own until the trembling lessened. Now, though I never would have thought he would be the person to lend me comfort, Elmer`s friend did the same for me.
My tears had slowed by the time this preacher persuaded me that it was right to rise and say goodbye. I still moved like a passenger unsure of her destination, but as my eyes grazed the unfamiliar face of death, I drew strength in the knowledge that I was not alone in my love for Elmer.
Strangers to me had known him well, loved him as I had, understood the same unchangeable truths about him.
In his death, the earth trembled a little for us all; we experienced the separation from him all together, and all together, we said goodbye.
