A story of Mine

Today is the day of the funeral. Rupert doesn’t understand what is going on. He is angry he has to wear his Sunday suite, and wails when I brush out his locks. He keeps asking mother when papa will get home; he is four, and doesn’t understand. Papa died a short while ago; he will never be coming back to us now. You hear of people dying at work, but you never think it will happen to someone related to you. It has, and papa is dead. His stiff body now lies confined in his little wooden coffin. It sits on a creaking table in the church.

Papa was so excited when he got the job at the mines; he had run down the street and right through the door, yelling. The wages were better than what we could have imagined. It would be hard work but papa was strong. He always had been mother had often said. Strong but ugly was how mother described him when they had first met. She got used to his scars after they married. Now they were beautiful. They were there to direct papa’s tear, like running rivers, she told us. I didn’t believe her; I never saw papa cry.

The roof had collapsed on them. It had strained to keep itself up, but the weight of earth on top of it finally broke it. The roof collapsed on papa and some other working men. It took two days and a large group of people to excavate the bodies. Excavate was the word papa’s late supervisor used. It sounded exotic and special, like digging up their bodies had been a great discovery rather than a great tragedy. Mother is weeping in the hallway. I try and pacify Rupert.

We leave the house after mother disguises her tears with make-up. The screen door rattles behind us. As we reach the road a breeze picks up loose dirt from the road and carries it away. I wonder if that will happen to papa’s soul. Will the wind carry him to heaven, and to God? I hope so. He was a deserving man I think.