Goodlife, Mississippi by Eileen Saint Lauren

Author:Eileen Saint Lauren [Eileen Saint Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eileen Saint Lauren Books, LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE FUNERAL

Chapter 10

Winter-Spring, 1961-1962

WALKING INTO THE SANCTUARY of the Union Community Church, still without the use of my voice and hands, the first thing that caught my eye was the sun illuminating an oval window of broken purple glass. I watched the sunlight infuse its gold amid the purple’s brokenness until soft sparkles of yellow broke into vein-like colorful streams leaving the church window glowing from a brown to a gray rose. I saw a spider weaving its web over a palm leaf and an olive branch engraving that was hugging a set of stairs that led off to a dark corner.

“Those are catacombs for the dead,” Granddaddy Davis told me.

Grief-stricken and heartbroken, I nodded, seeing the underground passageways that lead to the catacombs that held the remains of somebody’s loved ones.

My eyes locked on an altar where beautiful lifelike carvings of Godly images rested in an eternal sleep. Saint Paul was holding a book and a sword. Jesus Christ was handing Saint Peter a set of keys. Off to the side, I saw Jesus as a boy among the elders in the Temple, Jesus as a young man being judged before Pontius Pilate, and Jesus as an adult being hoisted to a tomb.

Like the stories Momma used to read to me from the Bible.

I recognized everyone at the altar. When I saw the sun through the stained-glass window lighting the Old and New Testament characters, I groaned when like a swollen river, memories of my folks flooded my mind.

“Myra, how are you doing?” Grandma Reatha asked.

I blinked and began to cry. Strange as it sounds, I wanted to bite someone like a mad dog. And even though my hands had commenced to heal some from the medicine and bed rest the doctors in Jackson had ordered, I was as filled with as much fear as the moment I had opened my eyes and saw the children of light staring at me in the Opportunity House. Then, I remembered Paula who had helped me the most. Even though I didn’t understand all she meant, I felt a measure of comfort when I thought about what she’d told me was the one thing I should do: Listen. Listening wasn’t hard for me to do beings I’d not said a word since the fire. I turned and set my eyes back onto the spider that was moving out of the sunlight to the darkest corner of the staircase to keep the remembering pain from taking over my mind.

God is with me.

“Myra, if for one minute you don’t think you can tell your folks goodbye, let us know. We’ll take you back to Magnolia Sunday,” Granddaddy Davis told me.

I nodded.

Grandma Reatha asked me, “Myra, do you remember about me telling you that your Uncle John Shows spent many a year putting in these windows? And about how he special ordered them all the way from New Orleans, Louisiana, and some from Mobile, Alabama?” She put an arm around me. “Are your hands paining

you?”

I

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