When my mother died, I felt uncomfortable entrusting her funeral to the interim pastor of her evangelical Baptist church, a man she’d never met. I contemplated officiating her service at the Congregationalist church where I was pastor, but it was more than an hour away, making it unlikely that her aging church friends would attend. I visited her pastor. He graciously agreed to host the funeral there at my mom’s church, with me as the officiant.
A quarter century earlier, my father’s funeral had been held at that same church. Wandering the hallways, I found the room where the wake was. There I felt the presence of all my Italian ancestors who’d been present that weekend, and I thought I heard my mother’s voice say, “Well done, son. This is where Arnie’s life was celebrated and remembered. This is the church where I want my funeral. You listened!”
A deacon from that Baptist church had visited my mother regularly at her nursing home. On my way out, I asked the secretary if she knew a man named Dewey. Could she put me in touch with him? “Of course,” she said. I contacted Dewey to see if he’d saved the videotaped interview he’d done with my mother years before, on the topic of suffering and prayer.
