Free Book Excerpts

Eight short stories set in modern life, based on Matthew 5:3-8.  Questions for thought on the meaning and application in daily life.

Excerpt

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. Matthew 5:4

Prereading:

1.  For what in our personal lives do we mourn?
2.  How are we blessed if we mourn?
3.  What comforts us?

“Dolly, sit in the corner, where it’s dark, so that no one will see you. Be sure to keep that headscarf on. Your hair is a dead giveaway,” her voice whined into a sigh.
“It would have been better if you hadn’t come.” The plump, gray-haired woman left the mortuary alcove shaking her head.

“Wait, Aunt Lottie.” Dolly saw her aunt wasn’t going to wait.

Dolly tucked all the white strands of hair out of sight under her scarf. She shook the closed umbrella to get the drops of rain off. The long walk from the Greyhound bus terminal to the mortuary saved her the price of a taxi but cost her wet feet.

She sat in the corner of the pew. She stretched forward and looked into the front section of the main room of the mortuary. She could see several flower arrangements, including the one ordered by her mother and her before she left Minneapolis for Chicago. She knew the card did not indicate who had sent the flowers.

Amongst the arrangements, she could see part of the casket and her father’s white hair. Tears welled up in her eyes as she dug around in her purse. She pulled out a wet tissue and wiped her eyes. “I feel like an outcast at my own father’s funeral. I’m thirty-five years old, and I’m treated like a child that shouldn’t be seen or heard,” she whispered to herself. It made the alcove feel less empty.

Hearing several voices, she went to the side of the doorway and peered around the corner. Groups of people, mostly women, stood near the casket. The oldest, a large woman with gray hair, sobbed, “Oh, I’m a widow. He has left me. My poor Charlie. How will I bear it?”

“Deborah, you have been separated for twenty-seven years. Don’t be so dramatic.” Aunt Lottie put her hand on her hip as she stared at her ex-sister-in-law. “You’re just going to miss his money.”

“How dare you, Lottie?” Deborah stepped closer to Lottie and returned her stare. “I loved Charlie. Of course he took care of me by paying me a monthly allotment, but that was his duty.”

“Well, some of us don’t see it that way. You got all you could from him. You could have gone to work. Well, ‘good time Charlie’ is gone. You aren’t getting anything more. I know because all he left was his life insurance. And I’m the beneficiary.”

“Aunt Lot, you’ve no call to talk to my mother that way. Besides, I am the beneficiary,” said a young woman holding Deborah’s arm.

“No, Angelica! Charlie told me he made me the beneficiary to pay me back for the nine months he lived with my family when he was out of work.”

“That was twenty-five years ago, Aunt Lottie. He changed it when I turned twenty-one. He said he paid you back many times over with all the money he has given you over the years. And don’t forget your son, Melvin. Dad helped Melvin out when he got into trouble in Las Vegas. Melvin never paid Dad back. Dad said I was to use the insurance money to pay for the funeral expenses, and any debts he had,” Dolly saw the young woman lift her chin as she enunciated, “that can be proved, and the rest I was to keep. It is only a fifty thousand dollar policy so there won’t be much left.”

“Angelica, that money is mine. All of it. He promised,” Aunt Lottie hissed.

“He changed the beneficiary to my name, Aunt Lottie. So get over it.”

Dolly saw Aunt Lottie grab the arms of her husband and son and stomp away from the group. She stuck her head around the corner to watch them go out the door of the mortuary chapel. She looked back and stared right into the startled eyes of the young woman Aunt Lottie called Angelica. She ducked back around the corner and found to her horror her scarf had slipped to her shoulders. She yanked it back on and returned to her seat in the dark corner.

Moments later the young woman stood in the archway of the alcove. “You’re Dolly, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Angelica, your half-sister.”

“I guessed as much. Dad talked about you. And the gray-haired lady is your mother, Deborah, right?”

“Yes. I knew the moment I saw your white hair, you had to be Dad’s daughter by his first marriage. You inherited his white hair; I, unfortunately, didn’t.” Angelica glanced around the alcove. “Is your mother here?”

“No. She wanted to come, but she knew Dad and Deborah never divorced, so she thought it might not be fitting. We sent a bouquet of red roses. The one without a card. I hope you don’t mind. Aunt Lottie said I was not wanted here, because your mother never recognized Dad’s first marriage.”
Dolly looked past Angelica to the casket. Her fingers twisted the strap of her purse.

“That’s the first thing I can agree with Aunt Lottie about. Oh, I don’t mind your being here, but my mother is high-strung and very old world. She would cause a scene, I’m sure.”

Dolly nervously tucked her hair deeper under her scarf. She slid farther over on the pew even though there was plenty of room for Angelica. Angelica’s voice seemed kind although sad and hesitant. Dolly felt hesitant, finally she said, “It’s hard for both of us; sisters meeting for the first time.”

“Aunt Lottie says your mother is possessive, domineering and generally obnoxious. She said your mother hates me and I shouldn’t have come. My grandmother was like that. She never liked Dad, so she forced Mom, who was only 17 at the time, to divorce him. He didn’t have a job, so Grams
thought he was a bum.”

Angelica sat next to Dolly. “Aunt Lottie is wrong about my mother. That description fits her more than my mom.” Dolly thought Angelica’s voice sounded defensive. She decided not to tell Angelica that their dad also said Deborah and his sister Lottie were cut from the same bolt of cloth.

She relaxed, as Angelica talked, “Mom never recognized the marriage because it was by a judge and not in the church. That is very important to her. She wanted that part of Dad’s life forgotten. However, he told me about you, and that he went to visit you every summer for his vacation.”

“Yes. Sometimes he brought Aunt Lot, but not often. She kind of took over. One summer they came when Mom and I were canning our garden tomatoes. Aunt Lot dove right in and helped, but she also took all of it home with her–36 jars of tomatoes, peaches and pears. We didn’t have any
fruit all winter. We laugh about it now.”

“That certainly sounds like Aunt Lottie,” Angelica chuckled

“Dad told me what happened to your wedding present.”

“Nothing happened,” said Dolly. “He had Bob and me pick out a TV.”

“Dad said that Aunt Lot and he were driving to Minneapolis, and when they stopped for gas she asked to see his wedding present to you. He showed her a very expense bottle of perfume. She said that was not appropriate and put it in her suitcase.” Angelica looked at the floor. “He
never saw it again.”

Dolly nodded her head in understanding. “That must be why he took Bob and me to a fancy furniture store and told us to pick out anything we wanted. We chose a television set for a hundred-and-eighty dollars. Dad kept trying to get us to choose something more expensive. I thought he was disappointed when we insisted on an inexpensive TV. He probably wanted to show Aunt Lottie how much more he spent on the gift in comparison to a bottle of perfume. That sounds like Dad and Aunt Lot.” Dolly smiled.

“Yes, it does. In a way you were lucky to live in a different city than Dad and Aunt Lot. I’ve listened to more arguments than I care to think about. And, my mother and Aunt Lot fight like cats and dogs all the time.” Angelica shook her head and chuckled. “Some of it is pretty funny
when you think about it. I didn’t say this out there, but Dad told me that the money left from the insurance, I was to split with you.”

Dolly blinked hard several times as she leaned back against the pew. She had envied Angelica’s close relationship with their dad. Knowing he wanted to leave her something to share with Angelica took the edge off her feelings of rejection.

Angelica took a picture from her purse. “I want you to have this. I was going to send it to you.It is a picture of my husband, our three children and me. I thought you might want it.”

“Yes, thank you.” Dolly slipped the picture into her purse after she glanced at it. The smiling faces of strangers who had been closer to her dad than she had been made the ache sharper.

“I better get back to my family. Will you be coming out to the cemetery?” Angelica asked.

“Yes, I’ll be in Aunt Lottie’s car. I’ll try to stay out of sight, towards the back.”

“Thank you. My mother would say something unkind if she saw you, as your white hair identifies you.” Angelica smiled as she left the alcove.

Dolly listened to the pastor’s talk about the beatitude, ‘Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.’ He finished his sermon by saying, “People mourn over lost jobs, relationships, and a loss in death, but God sends comfort to all who call upon Him.”

She wondered if Aunt Lottie and Deborah thought comfort should be money. She certainly didn’t feel comforted. She felt like an outcast. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She shivered. The empty, dark alcove made her feel buried and forgotten.

After the casket was wheeled out to the hearse, she kept to the back of the crowd and slipped into Aunt Lottie’s car at the last minute.

At the gravesite, Deborah, Angelica, Aunt Lottie, and Cousin Melvin sat on folding chairs near the casket. Dolly stood in the third row from the casket and held the umbrella close.

When the mourners were starting to leave, Deborah and Angelica each took a rose from the bouquet that said Beloved Husband and Father and placed it on the top of the casket. Then Angelica took two roses from the bouquet that did not have a card and placed them on the casket.

“Why did you do that?” asked Deborah.

“I thought a couple extra roses would be nice,” said Angelica.

Dolly saw Angelica glance at her and smile as she walked off with her mother.

Dolly approached Aunt Lottie, “I don’t think I will stay overnight. Will you give me a ride back to the bus depot, and I’ll take the late bus home?”

“Well, that sounds sensible. I don’t know why you came anyway. You only saw Charlie once a year. I’ve been on pins and needles the whole time. Hurry up and get in the car. I’m getting drenched.”

“Melvin, you didn’t pay Charlie back that money he lent you. You need to pay me. I’m his sister. If I don’t get the insurance money, I should at least get the loan money.”

“Mom, I owed it to Uncle Charlie, not you. Now that he is gone, I don’t owe it to anyone.”

Aunt Lottie and Melvin argued all the way to the bus depot. Uncle Bill nodded his head and said uh ha to everything said by his wife or his son. Dolly sighed with relief when he stopped the car at the depot’s entrance.

Uncle Bill said good-bye, but Aunt Lottie and Cousin Melvin continued arguing and did not hear her as she got out of the car.

Passengers were boarding the bus to Minneapolis. Dolly found a place to sit in the back. The rain beat against the window as the bus left the terminal. Soon they were out of the city, and darkness settled in. Dolly felt the outside world had ceased to exist. All that was left were the strangers on the bus. The loneliness and sadness again brought the tears down her cheeks. She yanked a tissue from her purse. The picture Angelica gave her fell on to her lap. On the back of the picture were the names of each person and Angelica’s address. Dolly turned the picture over and smiled. I lost a father, but I gained a sister, a brother-in-law, two nephews and a niece. I think this is God’s comfort to me.  The tears stopped, and Dolly felt peace and comfort in her heart once again.

Post Reading:

1. Can you add anything to your answers in Prereading questions?
2. List people or things you have mourned or are now mourning and list the comforts you received.
3. How can we be a comfort to others in mourning? Are we then a blessing?
4. Is it easy to see comfort while we are mourning? If not, are there ways we can try to recognize the blessings?
5. Rewrite the beatitude in your own words.

Read more about Beatitudes For Today? Really? and Patricia Stinson HERE.

Copyright 2010 Patricia Stinson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.