COMPASSION

Chapter 12

The Funeral

Joe Havard and his lovely cousin Terry are sitting on a blanket in a sunny field next to a lake having a picnic. The two stare at each other smile and trade glances as the afternoon goes on. Joe moves closer to Terry and places his arm on her shoulder and leans in to kiss her on the lips when the dream suddenly ends. Catherine Havard rises up from her coffin and walks over to her husband and starts shaking him.
 
“Tom get up! I have to tell you about the dream I just had.” 
 
“What’s wrong!” Tom shouts.”
 
“Why am I dreaming of Joe and Terry kissing? Where would I get a dream like that? There first cousins!”
 
“I just woke up give me a minute.”  Tom collects himself, “Let’s go downstairs and talk in the kitchen.”
 
“I did not see a kitchen before in this house!” Catherine remarks.
 
Tom replies, “I put one in when you were sleeping.” 
 
 
The two are sitting at the kitchen table which is laid out exactly the same as the kitchen that was in their home on Fifth Street in West Pittston Circa 1950.
 
Tom takes a sip of coffee, “The dream you just had was not your dream. It was probably Joe’ s dream. When the soul or spirit leaves the body it wants to connect with another live body. Since it can’t connect with the original body it tries to connect with another body and in your case the body you want to connect with is Joe. Joe being the baby of the family likes you more than anyone else so he would not reject the physic electrical connection. Tommy our oldest has a connection to me since he likes me more than you. This connection allows us to read their minds, thoughts, experience their dreams and nightmares. In time you will learn to block these physic spiritual connections. Until then you will basically be in his head. It all gets back to Energy and Electricity. For Electricity to work there has to be a ground wire or path to ground. You lose your ground you become unstable. You are out of balance. The Universe wants to be in balance with all things. It all gets back to this Energy Thing. You hear people say when you die you die that’s it. What those people don’t understand and what I learned when I came here is when you die you release Energy. You go from one form of Energy into another. Mike our Mechanical Engineer Son can explain this better. Matter can be neither created or destroyed. So we didn’t die we changed energy forms.”   
 
A distraught Catherine tells her husband, “But I don’t want to know everything that is going on in his head.”
  
“Hopefully Joe will find a girl then his physic connection will switch to his girl maybe wife. We better get going so we are not late to your  funeral.”
 
Tom and Catherine arrive at Manions as Mr. Spiceman is arranging the funeral car procession sequence with Catherine’s casket in the lead hearse. The first car behind the hearse will contain the Havard Sons and the three other pallbearers followed by family and friends in the remaining cars. Mr. Spiceman receives a radio signal from Ed his driver in the rear of the procession to start the trip to St. Johns Church.
 
Mr. Spiceman turns the hearse ignition key but the hearse won’t start. After several attempts to start the hearse, a second hearse is brought around and the casket is moved to the new hearse and finally, the procession starts rolling.  The procession finally pulls in front of the St. Johns front steps. The car behind the hearse arrives with pallbearers inside…Tommy, Michael, Joe, and Uncle Vince Teresa’s Husband exit the car. They are soon joined by Mr. Spiceman and Ed the driver. All six men take their position along the side the casket and grab the built-in fixed rail and start to make the climb up the very steep granite stairs at the church front entrance. Half way up the steps the pall bearers wish the casket rails weren’t fixed but the flip out style so the casket would not be so difficult to hold.
 
They finally make it to the top of the stairs and place the casket on the coffin trolley. The church bell starts to ring ten times signaling the start of the funeral mass. Everyone moves inside the church and takes their seats.
   
Catherine and Tom are sitting in the back of the church as Father Burns starts the mass which is short and uneventful and soon it is over. Father Burns meets the Havard sons after the mass and tells them he must stay at the church and Mr. Spiceman will conduct the Committal Service at the cemetery. The six pallbearers again lift the casket off the trolley and make the difficult climb down the church's front steps to the waiting hearse.
 
In a short time, the procession pulls into Sacred Heart Cemetery. All three Havard sons exit their car and walk to the open grave. They inspect the freshly dug hole and are thankful the slope of the land should provide for good drainage.
 
Mr. Spiceman says the Committal and the service is over. Everyone is freezing from the cold and brutal wind this horrible February Morning.
  
 Mike Havard asks for everyone’s attention, “I wanted to let everyone know you are all invited to my house for brunch. Donna and I live on Dan Creek Road behind the East Side Middle School. We hope to see everybody there.” 
 
Mike and Donna get in their van and slowly leads the procession to their home. Family and friends quickly leave the grave site leaving only Tom and Catherine to watch the Manion crew lower the coffin into the grave.
  
Catherine with a very stoic look on her face turns to her husband and says, “I guess that is it...I am really dead. Tom take me away from here. I don’t want to see anymore.”
 
“Did you want to go to the Funeral Brunch?”  Tom asks.
 
“No, let’s go for a ride,” Catherine replies.
 
“The boys will talk about dividing up your money. Did you want to hear what they have to say?”
 
“Yes, we...How do you know what they are going to talk about?”  “Do you remember I have a mental connection with Tommy.” 
 
Catherine replies, “Maybe we better go to the Brunch.”