We never would have heard the end of it.
The casket is pine and still smells like the woodshop it came from at Angola Prison. The inmates crafted it for him by hand. My mom works at the museum there, and even though they normally make coffins only for people like Billy Graham, who won’t die for almost ten more years, they make one for him. I hang my body over it all day, and the smells of sawdust and stain get into my clothes. Jack stands beside me and rubs my shoulders while my mom and my brothers bravely and graciously accept condolences from hundreds of people. The stories, the sweetness, the sorrow that drifts over to me make me miss him so much more.
I’ve never forgotten what he told me before school in the morning: “I love you so much, remember your manners, always look out for the little guy.” But it’s today, in a hall too small to contain the splendor of him, that I learn just how devoted he was to those words.
“He helped my mama move.”
“He was the best teacher I ever had.”
“Your daddy bought us a Christmas tree.”
The mourners share with us for hours and hours. People we’ve never seen before, lives he changed but never spoke of.
“He helped pay my tuition.”
“He helped me get a scholarship.”
Lile wipes his eyes and Tim shakes his head. My mom looks deep into the eyes of every single person who greets her and gifts her with another memory. She says, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” with more sincerity, more truth than it’s ever been spoken before.
“Mr. Lindsey sat with me while my husband was in the hospital.”
“There’s no way I would have graduated without him.”
At the end of the day, I’m the last one to leave. Jack gently grabs for my hand.
“Babe, Ruthie, it’s time to go home. The funeral is tomorrow, you can see him again tomorrow.”
“Daddy…” I say it one more time, running my fingers along smooth marbled veins of the wood, and Jack leads me out the door.
The day we bury him isn’t beautiful the way it should be. The rain works in long, boring shifts, tumbling fast from the smoky clouds and then slowing to a drizzle. The ground is gummy and everything smells like earthworms. The pallbearers wear his bow ties and the marines come in their dress blues. John and Katie come from Nashville. John sings “Give Me Jesus” and it reaches all the way up to the rafters. I smile the whole time, an enormous plastered Little Ruthie smile that makes my jaw creak. It’s a weird time to smile, but maybe in this sadness if I look like a buoy, I can stop somebody else from drowning.
Jack peels me from the casket when it’s time to sit down. I grin until my cheeks hurt.
My brothers speak during the service while I sit in the first pew on the right, irreparably broken and too skinny in an itchy black dress. I’m in awe of them and astounded that they can find words when I can barely breathe. Tim, who is quiet and somber but no more so than normal, recites Philippians 2 from memory; Lile makes a joke about our daddy getting chocolate pie on his angel wings and everyone laughs. Sobs float up past the white arches and get caught in the ceiling like fruit flies, buzzing and echoing and making beautiful, horrible, sad music. A few more people take turns standing up at the pulpit and preaching the gospel of Lloyd Lindsey, though nobody in the room needs evangelizing. I try to listen as they bring him back to life with their words, but I just keep staring at him in his big wooden box. The life of him and the loss of him sit side by side in front of me and I have never felt so much like I missed a step. My mom and I exchange shattered smiles, reading each other’s thoughts, while the wild, ever-growing gang of nieces and nephews fidget in their church clothes and poke each other and don’t understand why everyone is crying.
“He would love this,” Jack says, squeezing my bony leg, trying so hard to make it better, to line it in silver.
“I know,” I whisper. My cheeks are tired and shaky from making smiles I don’t mean, but I make one more just for him. He’s trying so hard to make it better.
When the service is over, we go