The Resurrection, Part 2

Image is AI generated. Story is 100% human.

I guess it was a nice enough memorial service, when you consider the fact that nobody really knew Virgil. Not even the folks at Shepherd’s Rest (no idea what denomination), the small church that used to be a post office where Virgil and I had been members ever since we were kids. Like most of the kids’ families in the neighborhood Virgil’s was working class and didn’t have a lotta money, just enough. But his parents always made sure he looked as well taken care of as the other kids. Maybe because they didn’t wanna give those other kids another reason to pick on their son. Sure, it was church, but when has that ever mattered to kids when they feel like being mean?

Anyway, Virgil’s parents brought him faithfully every Sunday until he was around 16, and then they stopped coming. Not quite sure why, and from what I could see next door, not much changed in their daily routines. Virgil was still at school every day, hardly being noticed like usual. Dad still went to GM to work his shift, mother kept teaching elementary school kids several blocks away.

So whatever. No one at church seemed to care that Virgil’s family was gone which, looking back on it, I think was kinda strange because it’s not like they could afford to lose a lotta members. Shepherd’s Rest needed every soul it could get. But for some reason you could feel there was a sense of relief like a burden had been lifted.

I think it was the burden of dealing with folks who don’t fit, even in a church fulla misfits like ours. You could sense it even from Pastor Simms, who had been the pastor ever since Shepherd’s Rest stopped handling mail and started trafficking in wayward souls, and there were more than a few at Shepherd’s. Not that I was in any position to judge. Me or anyone else who belonged, which had a lot to do with why we belonged. And that includes Pastor Simms, who had one of those kinda checkered histories folks knew about but didn’t talk about.

You know he saved now, so don’t none of that matter. God got him, and he got us. Amen!

Maybe. But whatever pastor was involved with for all those years out in ‘The World’ had left its mark. You could see that mark working on him the day he delivered words at the service for Virgil. I don’t wanna say he preached, because something about how he was saying what he was saying made it different. The words had the wrong feel to them, the wrong intent. It’s hard to explain, but I knew they weren’t meant for comfort, or at least not the right kind of comfort.

Because wherever Virgil is right now, Lord, we know that perhaps he is better off. As are we. That is, for having done our best to keep him and his family close to your path and your light. We know that he was a child of yours as he was a child of Shepherd’s Rest, even if he seemed not always so sure. In his transition, we pray that he will find and accept the answers that eluded him in this life.

Amen.

That’s when the room got cold. Then came those noises…