Page 177 of Share with Me

She found the corner of the back-row pew insulating. She sat silently, spoke to no one, sobbed alone, and thought of Yun and how it was too late for words, too final for eventualities.

What sliced at Brinley was not the act of saying goodbye to Yun, but the fact that the last time they had gotten together, Yun had been downtrodden. Such a strong spiritual woman brought down by a wayward grandson who should be slapping himself awake to see the reality of the situation.

His actions, his failed plans—if there had been any—had left his grandmother no choice, but to sell her beloved Steinway Victorian upright piano. While Brinley had added a generous amount to the appraised value of the piano, it was obvious that if Ivan had paid more attention to his finances, Yun wouldn’t have had to hawk off a family heirloom. Even with that piano sold, they still didn’t have enough to pay off the McMillan family home.

I blame Ivan.

Some people came to sit down beside her. It wasn’t until someone squeezed her hand that she realized it was Tobias and his father Alonzo. Alonzo’s eyes were red and he was barely keeping it together.

Tobias held Brinley’s hand, like he had used to do when helping her cross the roads back when she was six and he was older.

“Gonna be okay, all right?” he whispered.

Brinley nodded.

Many times, she had wished Tobias was really her older brother.

A haunting violin began to play “Amazing Grace.” Brinley didn’t care who was playing. She was too busy keeping her head down, to be alone in her grief. She stared at the wood pews in front of her, wood that every now and then resembled the panels on the sides of a casket.

Yun McMillan had been a good friend.

A dear friend.

Gone.

Before Brinley met Jesus, she had thought that Christians were overtly religious by nature, but Yun had been the least condescending of all. Preachy she might have been, but Yun had meant well. At their last tea time together, Yun had pleaded with her to forgive Ivan.

Forgive him?

A group of senior adults gathered on the platform and sang some of Yun’s favorite old-time hymns. When they reached “Blessed Assurance,” Brinley recalled that bittersweet day when she had sight-read that hymn for Yun, minutes before Ivan kicked her out of their house in a dismissive way that confused her to this day.

Forgive him.

One by one, Yun’s singing friends came forward to tell a joke or a story about Yun. When an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair finished the story about the time he tried to cozy up to Yun at the ice cream social, there was not a dry eye in the sanctuary amidst the laughter. And the missionary trips overseas that Yun and her husband Otto had taken in her lifetime! Brinley had no idea she had traveled that much. The time she had to eat green caterpillars in Papua New Guinea or taste fried grubs in Botswana…

Pastor Gonzalez went up to speak.

“She is not here,” he announced, and the entire crowd leaped to their feet and cheered, breaking into an a cappella “O Happy Day.”

This is how Grandpa Brooks’s funeral should’ve been.

While his, ten years before, had focused on death and the past, Yun’s funeral focused on life and the future. Brinley choked up when Pastor Gonzalez spoke of nothing except the love of Christ, the hope of Christ, the heaven of Christ, culminating in the cross of Christ, which he preached as the bridge to heaven.

“Yun McMillan crossed that bridge. She is now experiencing eternal life. Yun had hope. Do you? Yun is alive. Are you?”

The funeral service ended with the pallbearers carrying Yun McMillan’s coffin out to the hearse. Sitting in the back, Brinley saw Ivan for the first time since their last conversation some thirteen days ago. He walked alongside six pallbearers, three on each side, Quincy among them. Ivan himself did not carry the coffin. Brinley figured he was still recovering from his injuries.

As soon as the casket was out of the sanctuary, Tobias told his dad they should leave. Alonzo nodded.

“Take it easy,” Tobias said to Brinley. “See you at work later.”

Brinley nodded.

Zoe came up to Brinley in her Valentino black, the maternity dress concealing her three-month pouch. “Let’s go, Brinley.”

“I’m not sure if I should go. You know how I feel about cemeteries.” The last time Brinley went to a graveside service was in Charleston when they had buried Grandpa Brooks in the family mausoleum.

“Come for Grandma Yun’s sake. You’re practically family.”

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