dad died

I came home for a weekend pass from my military base. I found out that my had passed away. My sister, Jean, explained that she spoke with the county sheriff’s office. Obviously the bell stove Dad used to heat the old house got too hot and exploded, starting a fire in the front room. His bedroom door was about ten feet from the stove. When the stove exploded, it woke up dad. He must have gotten up immediately and tried to run to the back door of the kitchen to escape the scorching heat. He would have had to go through the stove in his room to get to the kitchen. The sheriff’s deputy told Jean that burning coals were likely scattered throughout the living room with smoke obstructing visibility into the kitchen. The back door was the only way Dad had to get out of the house, as the front door was sealed due to the cold winter. The smoke reached him when he fell to the kitchen floor and suffocated to death. Parts of his body received second degree burns.

On Monday night I attended Dad’s wake at North High Street Funeral Home in Columbus, Ohio. I walked over to the coffin primly and looked at Dad’s stiff body. Nervous anxiety shook me. I turned my attention to the surroundings. I touched and examined the materials of the coffin.

“Crepe”, I said to myself. “I think this is called a crepe.” I embarrassed myself. “What a coward I am,” I thought. “I have to face this head-on.”

I stopped my examination and looked directly at Dad’s lifeless body. Dad looked out of place lying down with those sacred ornaments. His character was loud, crisp and rough. Now he was quiet and still. This was probably the first time he wore a new suit with a tie and everything. Dad’s lips were pursed, I guessed because he didn’t have any false teeth in his mouth. They probably couldn’t find his teeth since he only wore them on special occasions. Maybe they got burned in the house fire. Too bad: Dad missed the perfect opportunity to wear his dentures. What really seemed strange to me was Dad’s skin: his hands and his face had a strange color, like soot.

I felt the presence of the undertaker standing to my right. He seemed eager to talk to me, but not wanting to interrupt my time with Dad, he waited patiently. When I recognized him with a look, he came closer. He noticed my puzzled look.

“Mr. Jackson, we are very sorry.”

“So that?”

“As you can see, your father seems to be a bit, how should I put it, dirty.”

“Yes, I was wondering something about that.”

“Well, we apologize, but we couldn’t clean your father any better than this. His skin had such deep cracks and some burns. The smoke and soot from the fire was embedded deep into his skin. We scrubbed him off as best we could.” he could. “

“That’s interesting.” I said. “I remember looking at those hands as a kid. He was a mechanic, you know, among other things. And all that work in the garage and outside as a farmer made them pretty gnarly. He was never able to completely get the grease and grime off of those called hands”.

“Mr. Jackson, I will apologize now and allow you some time with your father.”

“Spend some time with my father,” I thought. “Wouldn’t that have been nice?”

I reached out and touched his cold hand, a kind of substitute for shaking hands with me one last time. Not wanting anyone to hear me, I whispered, “You know, Mom and Dad and Jean told me last night that you converted to Christianity not long ago, maybe a year or so. They said something about how you got to the eleventh hour. No I’m pretty sure, but I guess that means you shapeshifted just in time, before you died. Well, now you’re safe, you won’t go to hell for yourself, I guess. But judging by your sooty appearance and burns, Looks like you barely escaped the flames of Hell.” I laughed a bit. I think he would have too.