The Calling Hour Line Ride at the Amusement Park of Suck

Two-plus hours from entrance to bereavement to exit, standing, waiting, shuffling, tolerating the incessant chit-chat of strangers and faces I recognized but couldn’t place flanked by Bibles and quilts and boundaries of folding chairs and respites of folding tables, to say the last goodbye to a good friend, a shell preserved in her place, a simple, beautiful, un-sanded casket; tears shed, hugs given, a chapter concluded, to three from four. As my grandmother used to say, “You never know.”