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Show Go Love/191 "Mama says love," I say. "Love!" the black lady sings Love. Love, somebody's singing. Go love I say, Go love, and it's done. When I turn back, Brother Dell's eyes smolder. He spits, steps past me and slaps the mike three times hard "Be seated," he says. "Order. Order in the Lord's court." Renee's chocked back the laughing sickness, though I wish for the single moment, as I slide onto the pew between her and Lara, that we could all turn lose. I wish we could laugh and sing and dance and praise Mama's lifetime, let love rise up and shake this somber roof. I want to make a joyful noise-how it should be. I clasp my wife's hand and so trembles pass between us The rest of the service is twisted around the twin notions that mama's walking in heaven with her good dead son, and that the rest of us are likely to die any second and spend eternity in hellfire Best to renounce Satan and the sins of lust and gluttony and wickedness We must rededicate ourselves to Christ. We sing sad songs about dying and I sit there watching my daughter write her name on the Call to Worship sheet. Then Shurl goes up and stands by Brother Dell and they make ready to open the casket for the last viewing. Renee and Lara and I file back up the steep middle aisle from whence we came, past all the faces now tearstreaked and shaken with grief, past the place where the man I couldn't name had sat, on through the unsealed double doors, into the foyer with its big clear vase full of daffodils sat on a table marked receiving. I search the sign-in sheet for names that ring a bell, think to walk outside and see who's leaving, though all that will have to wait for another day. I'm here now entirely-nothing else |