Farewell to Papa

One night I had just settled down to enjoy a treasured moment of reading when the phone rang. It was a crackly voice and she said that it wasn’t that long for Papa. He was at home now, bedfast, and could you come? Papa had never been baptized and now, face to face with the kind of questions that don’t go away, he was ready.

Just a short time before they brought him home from the hospital in a caravan of cars with their emergency flashers blinking. There wasn’t anything left to do for him. “We took him there and we’ll bring him home,” they said.

These were rural folk, hard-working people who made a way for themselves in the Ozark hills. Their place was on the second turn off past the cemetery by the church. When I pulled into the yard I was greeted by a pack of their dogs and I made my way through them and some rusting farm equipment up to the porch of the doublewide mobile home. It was the daughter who called me who opened the door.

The light was so dim inside that it took a moment for my eyes to adjust, but I could see the velvet head of Elvis on one wall over the sofa. I was escorted back to the bedroom where Papa was spending all of his time. The daughter said, “I’ll leave you two to yourselves,” and shut the door behind me.

Papa was a man of few words, but the words he did use were sharpened to a clean edge. We spoke of life and love and work. We recounted blessings and regrets. And we gathered in the big ideas like death, Jesus and eternal life. Papa said that he was ready to speak a word about this Jesus and go into the waters. Those waters, though, would have to pour in his bed.

The daughter brought in a basin of water and towels to the room and the family joined us and stood around the bed. I poured water over his old, wrinkly head and recited words about Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Papa sat still for the longest time with his eyes closed.

Just a few days later I received the call I was expecting. It was the daughter again. “Papa is gone.”

The graveside took place at the same cemetery I passed when I first came to visit and we all assembled under the blue tent in folding chairs. The gravediggers stood a distance off by the backhoe, waiting for their cue to finish up their work.

The daughter sat in the front row of chairs along with other family members. The customary scriptures were read and prayers spoken. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And with that, the service came to a close and everyone rose to leave. Everyone, that is, but this grown daughter of Papa. She stayed seated, gazing at the casket in front of her. She stayed until most people had already walked back to their cars, pulled out of the cemetery and headed home. She sat and sat some more.

One, lone granddaughter, a little girl no more than seven or eight, was standing off to the side, watching her grandmother. Finally she moved toward the casket and stood in front of this grieving daughter, facing her, silently waiting. For a while it was as though she looked right through her, as though she wasn’t there. But then she suddenly saw her, realized that her granddaughter was looking at her, waiting. And at that she gathered this young one into her arms and held her tightly. She held this little girl to her heart even as she poured out its grief in long sobs. The young girl did not resist. She was not afraid. She passively let her grandmother envelop her. This woman clung to this girl as though clinging to her own soul. Perhaps she was doing just that.