The Barefoot Evangelist (Book:Part XII)

 

The little Boy’s funeral

 

 

 

 

Arriving home, Erik drove into the driveway, parked the car and, without shoes but with plenty of apprehension, ran into the house.

He closed the door behind him very carefully and stood still in the middle of the living room. He was soaked from the top of his head to the bottom of his rolled up pants. He really looked like someone who was far too occupied with his pursuits to take any great notice of or regard for his personal appearance.

These tokens of Erik’s appearance were not lost on his son, who burst out of the kitchen and ran to greet his father but stopped when he came near him, noticing the deplorable condition he was in.                                                                                                                     “Daddy! Daddy! You look wet and awful. What happened to your shoes?  Mommy! Daddy is here,” yelled the little boy with as much keenness as surprise. “Don’t worry, Daddy, you have more shoes and you have other clothes that are not wet. Everything will be all right, Daddy.”

Erik didn’t move a muscle but looked inattentively down at Randy for a moment and with the same thoughtless look on his face, took off his coat and placed it on the chair near where he was standing.

Susan walked slowly from the kitchen into the living room and looked at Erik.  All the

quarrels, all the ill will and bad blood rose to her face and planted themselves in such a distasteful and distrustful visage that any husband on this earth would kill to avoid seeing it.

“You should see yourself,” said Susan, in the condescending tone that ordinary folks use on little people.

Erik stood with both bare feet planted firmly on the carpet.

“You will be okay, Daddy, once you dry off,” said the little boy, as he took Erik’s jacket and half dragged it across the room looking for a place to hang it.

Erik totally disregarded the reassuring words of his son, and finding it was of no use to discuss anything with his wife, headed for the bedroom in silence and distress like a wet cat.

The little boy went to the closet holding his father’s coat with both hands and jumping a few inches off the floor with both feet while nailing his attention with both eyes on the pocket that had the revolver; tried to hang up the coat.                                                           “Daddy, I can’t hang up your coat,” yelled the little boy, looking around for help. The father entered from the bedroom wearing fresh clothes, took the jacket from the boy, hung it and then walked towards the kitchen.

The little boy stayed behind, his eyes still nailed on the gun. “How many years will it take for me to grow tall enough to hang up your coat?”

“Months not years; only a few months,” responded the man of the house, on his way into the kitchen.

The little boy patted the gun as he bid it good-bye and then he too went into the kitchen.

“Daddy, did you bring me a toy?”

“I always bring something for my little guy,” remarked the father, getting closer to the mother.

“When can I have it?” asked the little boy, sitting down with a bowl of dry cereal in front of him.

Susan was standing by the kitchen window looking outside and listening to the pouring rain.

”If I say I’m sorry about yesterday would that be enough for you to talk to me or must we have a cold war that will go on for days?” asked Erik, standing behind her, close enough to touch her.

“I have no intentions of carrying on a cold war,” said Susan abruptly; she hastily went out of the kitchen and into the living room resuming her stance by the window.

Seeing his parent’s disposition, Randy’s ears perked and his eyes opened wide with alarm.

Susan would have said much more but her voice was heard to be breaking during the utterance of her last words as if grief were choking her.

Erik appeared struck by the way and the tone in which those words were dispensed. He walked over and stood in the living room staring at Susan’s back for a long moment before moving near her, reaching out to touch her hair. Susan, feeling his approach, slid away and went back into the kitchen.

The moment Susan walked into the kitchen and stood by the window, the boy looked at her and, seeing the apathy on her face, figured the coast was clear to take another look at the gun and went straight to the closet where the coat was hanging.

He took the gun from the pocket and looked at it. Realizing that it was the real thing and being overcome by fear, he put it back quickly and turned to his father, who was still standing by the window looking out,

“Can I have my toy now, Daddy?’ asked the boy, approaching his father carefully, stopping by his side and looking up at him.

Whatever displeasing thoughts circulated in Erik’s head were quickly abstracted by the boy’s voice. His face relaxed as he looked down at his son.  He took his son by the hand and guided him to the light green couch and gestured for the boy to sit down.

The boy sat there, looking up at his father with a happy face. Whether he thought that his father was about to hand over a toy, or if he anticipated a hearty talk with his father, as he often enjoyed, it is not known.

“Do you love me?” asked Erik, kneeling in front of the boy.

”Yes, Daddy,” replied the little fellow, smiling and slapping his lap with both hands.

“You know, Randy, Mommy and I love you too,” said the father, caressing the boy’s hair with his right hand and laying his left hand gently and compassionately on his arm. “Don’t pay too much attention to the way your Mommy and I fight. We don’t fight very often. You know that,” said the father soothingly.

“But why do you fight?” asked the boy, in a low and timid voice.

“Oh, because I make some stupid mistakes sometimes.”

“But Mommy tells everybody that you are very smart.”

“Yea!  I’m genius,” muttered Erik, removing his eyes from the youngster for a moment.

“No matter how smart one is, he can make mistakes if he is not thinking right.”

“Daddy, will I fight with my wife when I get one?” asked the boy a little louder.

“Of course you will, if you love your wife and you care what she says or thinks. Now, go into the kitchen and eat, and when you are finished, I’ll give you your toy,” directed the father, helping the boy up from the couch and tapping him on his back. The boy left, pleased as if they had struck a bargain.

“Daddy?” asked little Randy, stopping by the door to ask something else, “Where were you last night?”

“I was out of town working. Go have your breakfast,” urged the father without taking anytime to consider a better answer.

“Daddy!”

“Yes, Randy.”

“Can I go with you out of town next time?”

“Yes.”

“That should be an interesting sight to see,” interjected Susan, who was in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

The boy took his chair, searched with his eyes around the table and pretended that he didn’t hear his mother’s remark.

“Maybe we should both go to hear your father’s sales pitch,” spouted Susan, directing that statement to her son, but by the way it was delivered it was really intended for her husband to hear.

Having heard that unnecessary remark and understanding that the cold war was about to turn into a hot battle, Erik entered the kitchen slowly, stood by the door, and waited to hear the follow up, knowing that there had to be one.

“Breakfast is waiting,” announced Susan, who with sundry grimaces had been affecting to avoid any further discussion with her husband.

“Husband on one side, wife on the other and son in the middle, a beautiful view and wonderful accommodations too,” noted Erik.

“It’s a unique observation, “ responded Susan.

They sat down to breakfast, but it was evident, regardless of the husband’s satirical comment, the wife was harboring considerable anxiety within her chest.

“Why don’t you ask your father to tell you where he really was last night,” said Susan with heated sarcasm. “Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t you shut up?” retorted Erik immediately and softly, digging into his food.

“Never!  I will never shut up from now on as I have been doing,” returned Susan loudly with greater energy, now standing up and looking hard at her husband.

“You have no idea when to talk and when to shut up, do you?” said the husband, still softly.

“I may have formed some new ideas about the subject. Last night, I had a whole night filled with thoughts and I want to share them with you now,” snapped Susan, besieged with agitation.

“Then I should feel most obliged to you, for any advice that you may come up with,” said Erik, with the profound solemnity that few men could muster during situations like these. “But, my lady, could this wait till after breakfast, away from small ears and small eyes?”

“Oh, Erik, you have such a way with words,” said Susan, after a long moment’s silence.                                                                                                                        She suddenly darted out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Erik, looking at the boy who was eating his cereal and appearing to have turned a deaf ear to the whole scene, took a few more bites of the food his wife had prepared, stood up, stroked the boy’s hair and went out of the kitchen into living room where Susan was standing by the window, looking out with her arms folded before her. Erik neared her and looked outside in the same manner as she did. They both remained for some time absorbed in their own meditations, while their boy, in the kitchen mechanically eating his breakfast, cast an anxious look from time to time towards the living room, disturbed by inward misgivings regarding his parents’ arguments.

The sky was gray; the rain pounded on the roof of the house and hammered violently on the bushes and flowers, setting an uneasy mood in Susan’s heart.

 

woman pleading with husband

“Why, Erik?  Why are you punishing me? What sin am I guilty of? What have I done to you so terrible to deserve such punishment from you, Erik?” cried Susan, turning around to display a thousand drops of tears rolling down her face and over her quivering lips; with trembling uncontrollable hands she attempted to wipe them away.

“Susan,” said the husband, reaching out to touch her.

“No! Please, Erik,” said Susan, turning her face and her body away, bringing her hands together as if to pray. “Please, tell me, Erik, is spending one night with a strange woman worth killing me? Why don’t you take that pistol you always carry and kill me, Erik? Stop my suffering. Please do that for me. I want to die, Erik, don’t you understand that? Didn’t you ever think of my dying rather than suffering the way I do? I don’t have the courage to do it myself, Erik. You do it for me. Kill me Erik! I am already dead inside. All my dreams have turned into nightmares and now even they are gone and I am left without any good or bad feelings. Since I lost the dream of waking up in the morning and looking at my husband and believing that he does love me, I don’t wish to live anymore. You loved me once, I know you did.”

With those words, which were spoken with all the energy of a passionate grief she fell into a trembling feat and crossed her arms in front of her in an effort to stop her violent shaking.

“I still love you,” asserted the husband, taking her in his arms and wiping the tears off her face, looking at her through his own tears.

“Please Erik, tell me why you stopped loving me,” she pleaded, with a shattered voice.

“I haven’t stopped loving you, sweetheart,” insisted Erik, trying to make her believe it.

“Is it because I’m a burden on you, Erik?” Susan went on, as if she heard nothing of what he said.

The boy, listening to his mother crying and hearing his father pleading with her, got down from his chair and stood for a long moment looking like a distressed grown-up, staring from one to another while these words were being uttered, as if he were bewildered and could scarcely understand what passed, he then headed for the closet where the coat with the pistol was hanging.

“Erik, I have always tried to make you happy. I did.  I always have done what was expected of me. Tell me if it’s not true.”

“Honey, you are my life,” whispered Erik, caressing her doleful face.

“Let me go in the kitchen for something to wipe some of my tears away,” said Susan softly as she disengaged herself from her husband’s arms and went into the kitchen.

Erik followed her there without the slightest delay.

“I know I have been a burden on you, Erik,” repeated the wife.

The boy stood in front of the closet with both eyes on the hanging coat, listening to his mother and father arguing in the kitchen.

“I know, Erik,” said the wife, turning to face her husband who had his back to the window; “I have stopped you with my nagging and my need for security from becoming someone more important than you are. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Erik,” chattered Susan; placing her face into her hands, she sobbed violently.

“You didn’t stop me, honey, I stopped myself,” said Erik, tenderly attempting to sooth her pain and trying to dry the tears off his wife’s face with a tissue.

“I have been a chain around your neck, Erik. I know. You could have been an actor, a singer, a writer, but I stopped you. I didn’t give you any support, I know it and it’s eating me alive,” admitted Susan.

“No! No! You are my golden chain that adorns me, sweetheart,” said Erik, caressing her face. “Please listen and look at me!” said Erik, holding his wife by the shoulders.  “I have neither the courage nor the heart to stand before you and confess my sins to you, but I promise you right now, that I will sin no more.”

Randy is aiming at his Dad

 

“ Dad,” called the boy, holding the gun with both hands and pointing it at both of them.

“The gun!” screamed Susan, as she darted towards the boy.

“It’s empty,” yelled Erik, also dashing towards the boy.

Both parents sped towards the young lad. The boy pulled the trigger and the gun didn’t fire. He immediately turned the gun to himself to see why it didn’t go off, closed one eye and pulled the trigger again. The parents were only inches away when they saw the gun jump in the boy’s tiny hands. The gunshot explosion erupted, blood splashed on the wall, and Susan shrieked like a wounded wild beast, and with a mother’s energized rage, in an act of desperation and suffering for her child’s pain, she went down on the floor to break her son’s fall.

Erik grabbed the boy as he was falling, let him down easily on the floor and threw the white tablecloth on his severely damaged face. The cloth was instantly soaked with blood;  the little boys body was moving violently as if he were trying to stand up, and then it was only trembling beneath the tablecloth. Susan, screaming, came to her feet for one short moment and then dropped herself on top of the little boy’s trembling body. She threw her arms around him screaming louder, calling his name over and over.

Erik moved her away, picked the body up and placed it the on the kitchen table.

“He is still alive, Erik! My Randy is still alive. Do something, Erik!” Susan kept screaming while Erik was holding her back.

The little boy’s body stopped moving.

Susan, covered with the boy’s blood, face and body, screamed when she saw that the little body had stopped moving. “Our boy is dead, Erik. He is dead, Erik.” She placed her face on the bloody cloth and sobbed violently, and then she said, “We have no more boy, Erik. I have no little friend anymore to talk to.” Saying this, she fainted. Erik picked her up, carried her into the living room and opened the front door for some air to revive her. Even though she had fainted, her maternal pain brought her back to her consciousness. She barely opened her eyes and said dimly, “Sit me up, Erik.” He did so, and collapsing beside her, he covered his face with his hands and sobbed loudly.

Three days later on a misty early-summer day, the funeral procession mournfully rolled down the highway headed for the cemetery.  From the long queue of cars one could see that the Karas family had a lot more friends than anyone could have anticipated. The grieving parents in the black limousine, their eyes sunken in their skulls, sat motionless as if the slightest move would cause their bodies to collapse.  There was no figure of speech or method of communicating to describe the ache and the grief in their hearts. As the limousine continued the journey, Susan suddenly caught a glimpse of an abandoned bridge and began to sob violently, sending an additional dose of anxiety into her husband’s already troubled mind. He reached to touch her hand with his and gently pulled her towards him. She rested her head on his chest and slowly lifted her eyes towards the bridge again. She recollected happy times with Randy when he would coax her to lift him up so that he could better see the glistening water and sometimes the faint reflection of the two of them bending over the railing. She would point out to him the pleasure boats cruising up and down in the huge lake not far from the bridge. As the youngster became more familiar with the setting, he would gather twigs, drop them in the river’s flowing waters, then run to the other side of the bridge to watch them drift downward and eventually disappear in the tumultuous lake.

She recollected his light heart, his merry laugh and his sparkling eyes looking at her for approval and applause for what he had done.

Sometimes the father, taking off a few hours from his job, would join them. They used to gaze upon their only child and feel each other’s cheerful hearts, happiness, hopes and dreams. She recollected one time that as she was reading a book while leaning on the guardrail of that unused bridge, Randy went to the side of the bridge, stuck his head through the rails and leaned outwards as far as he could without overbalancing himself, endeavoring with great perseverance to spit on the twigs he had dropped on the other side of the bridge. Besieged by fear she screamed, ran and pulled him gently by the seat of his short pants. The young boy brought in his head and shoulders with absolute swiftness, stood back, looked at his mother’s panic-stricken face and laughed with a full heart. She knew that she would never forget his bare knees and belly laughs. She remembered how she and her young companion had sat at the bridge watching the patient fishermen in their very tiny boats let the hours go by without a yank or a bite from the inhabitants beneath the rolling waters. Realizing that those pleasant events would never come again, she felt frail, disheartened and looked as if she were sinking, weighted down by the combined effects of physical illness

The entire caravan of over thirty vehicles followed the hearse as it passed through the double-gated entrance to the cemetery, under the arched sign SUNSET CEMETARY that welcomed the visitors.            

The motorcade was directed by a cemetery official pointing to the location of the grave. The cars parked along the winding cemetery road and the hearse, flower car and limousine stopped close to the little boy’s final place of rest.

First, all the flowers were unloaded and carefully arranged around the grave by four somber individuals. Susan, dressed completely in black with a black veil pulled covering her face, stepped out from the limousine, and walked on slowly with her head down and with her right arm in Erik’s left, leaning on him. The doors of all the other cars opened almost simultaneously and the mourners poured out, heading for the grave. They approached and stationed themselves close to where Susan sat on a chair. The people that had gone to witness the burial of the little boy gathered around and stood still by the gravesite.

The little coffin was borne slowly forward on the shoulders of six men.  A dead silence soaked the mourning crowd, broken only by birds’ caroling, audible lamentations of some women and the shuffling steps of the bearers on the grass. They carefully and slowly placed the coffin near the grave.

 

The priest from St. Demetrius Greek Orthodox Church, accompanied by a cantor and an altar boy, assumed their places at the grave. He held the Holy Bible close to his chest with his left hand and from his right hung the censer with burning incense. He began the Service of the Burial with reverence and homage, chanting and swinging the censer back and forth in front of him while revolving to face the mourners. From time to time he handed the censer to the altar boy, freeing his right hand to cross himself as well as to bless the people with the sign of the cross.  The altar boy stood attentively for fear of missing the cue to return the censer to the priest who, with the cantor, alternately chanted from the Trisagion Hymn, “Holy God, Holy and Immortal have mercy on us…. Alleluia…. alleluia…. alleluia…. As the smoke of the incense wafted up, thus may our prayers ascend to Heaven and be acceptable to God….”

Those of the same faith accompanied the priest in singing softly, ”May his memory be in our hearts forever…Alleluia… alleluia…alleluia…. Glory be to God… Amen.”

Susan reached behind her veil and with trembling hands wiped her tears, while Erik glanced at her with his eyes flooded. One could see there weren’t many dry eyes fixed on the little coffin. The mourners’ heads bent downward, their hands clasped before them. Since the eulogy was conducted in the Greek language, only those of the Greek Orthodox faith were able to understand and chant along. The priest crossed himself again, and in imitation of that, all of the mourning men, women and children followed.

The priest gestured for the censer; the boy respectfully handed it to him, kissed his hand again and shrank back one pace. The priest, swaying the censer and voicing the chant of another verse, held the last note longer than usual and threw a quick glance at the tall, well dressed cantor who was standing next to him, who gladly assented to the priest’s gesture, and continued the chanting of the hymn in a voice and style that echoed as if that chanting were coming from on high, in celebration of the little boy’s departure from earth and his arrival in Heaven. It was apparent that the cantor had spent his entire life making sorrowful events pleasing to the ear and implanting kind expectations in the hearts of the sad beloved ones with his voice. The priest, affected by the sound of that magnificent chanting, moved slowly over and planted himself closer to the little coffin, swinging the censer, whispering a part of the ceremony with inaudible words that had apparently come from the Holy Book and that he had learned verbatim.

 

Greek Orthodox censer

This went on for a while, the cantor singing hymns and the priest whispering prayers and swinging the censer. The priest handed back the censer to the alter boy in the manner he had done before, and the cantor finished his hymn at that very precise moment. A short silence followed that was only to be broken by the priest, who raised the Holy Book to his lips and gave it a reverent kiss. He raised the Holy Book higher than his head, looked down at the coffin and chanted, “May his memory live forever,” and then raising his head high, he brought the Holy Book down, pressing it against his chest, closed his eyes and said, “Amen.”

He handed the big book to the cantor, who placed it behind him on a folding table that had been set up earlier.  The priest, although being one of nature’s most even tempered creatures and being well trained and habituated to control his emotions, took a white handkerchief from his pocket, removed his spectacles and wiped some tears from his eyes. He turned and faced the mourners and said in English, “I’m not accustomed to saying farewell to youngsters, so I am at a loss for words for the first time in my public life. The only thing I can say is that I pray that God may enlighten the hearts and souls of little Randy’s father and mother to believe that Randy is in good hands, in God’s hands,” continued the priest. Turning his attention to the little coffin and taking a single rose in a God fearing way, with a trembling hand he placed it on the little coffin, “Randy, I hope some day I will come to be in the same place you already are, next to God.” Then he turned and gazed at the mourners and said a little louder, “Sorrowful and sudden events such as this cause me to remember to truly be what I am, God’s servant.” He then slowly turned and walked over to Randy’s father and mother who were sitting; he bowed to the mother. She stood up with her husband’s aid, looking at the priest from behind a veil. The priest said in a very choked and weak voice. “God be with you, Mrs. Karas, as your son is with God.”  Having recorded his feelings with those words in an intelligible but cheerless tone, he gave Erik an awkward fleeting look, shook his hand in silence then walked away, taking out his handkerchief to wipe tears from his eyes, as the altar boy followed at his heels. The cantor, repeating the priest’s presentation, as he often did by tradition, expressed his condolences in stronger and louder terms and headed the way the priest went; he too wiped away tears that he had held back all through the eulogy.

After that Susan, with her husband’s assistance on one side and another lady’s on the other, slowly approached the little coffin that was poised to be lowered into the earth. She suddenly disengaged herself from her two helpers and ran towards the coffin, dropped herself on her knees, embraced the coffin and cried out loudly, “Randy! Randy!  My baby. I don’t want you to go. Don’t go, Randy. What am I going to do without you, Randy?”

While the mother was wailing those sad lamentations, Erik, hearing those affecting words and not being able to endure the pain any longer, disregarded all the mourners, turned and hastily walked away until he came upon a tree a few yards away. He placed his head on the tree trunk and sobbed heartily, grasping his skull with both hands. He could still hear his wife’s cries, now mingled with the weeping of others.

He remembered how their child sat patiently at his and Susan’s feet for hours, listening with his little hands folded in front of him and how his thin face rose upwards to them with a smile of childish cheerfulness. They watched him grow bigger from day to day, while answering his many curious questions. How happy they were then, in those moments filled with the joy of his childish dreams.

He couldn’t fathom that their son was gone from them forever and had moved to a final peace and place of rest. He was Randy’s father and he knew his loss would sink deep in his soul.  He thought that death for himself would be the only exit from this adversity and trial, but unexpectedly, at that moment, the tapping of a hand on his back brought him back to reality.  It was the hand of Carol.  He turned and saw she, too, was dressed in black. Her eyes were sunk into a face that looked gaunt, as if wasted with famine.

“I’m sorry, Erik, I am truly sorry for the loss of your son. I only wish, I could share your pain. I wish I could lift some of the burdening pain off your heart and place it onto mine. But I must confess to you that I share a part of the guilt you are feeling,” said the woman he had referred to as the ‘Polish pheasant’. He saw her lips quivering and he heard her broken voice.

“No, you had nothing to do with my son’s death. It was my fault; it will remain within me for ever.”

“Just remember, Erik, now you are passing through a storm.  The storm will be over some day, hold on to anything you can, because after the storm is over, anything you held on to will be priceless and invaluable to you,” said Carol, ending her statement with the touch of an encouraging smile.

“Lady of the good, I’ll try my best,” said Erik. “Please tell me how and why you appeared by my side when I was in the scuffle with Gottner?”

“Good bye, Erik, my friend,” said the girl, and summoning up all her inborn dignity, she gave him her hand.  He took it and gently rang it, then gently kissed it and let it go.

Carol looked at her hand and the spot he had kissed, then gave him another inspiring smile.

“I didn’t leave any lip prints,” said Erik, trying hard to smile back.

“Maybe not on my hand, but in my heart you did, Erik, have a nice life,” said Carol, turning her face away to wipe a tear from her eye with the corner of a handkerchief she was holding all along.

Without looking back at him again, she strode away hastily.

He briefly looked at her as she departed, and in his crowded, tired and confused psyche he found a drawer to lock and load away yet another thought of her. He thought of the character she possessed, offering sympathy and hope in his time of need when everything deserted him; without any personal profit for herself, she endeavored to bring him comfort and express true affection, those things that no wealth can purchase or power can bestow.

Sleep didn’t come easy to Erik that night, or to his wife who had taken the couch in the living room.  He heard her tossing and turning throughout the night and in the early hours when she visited their son’s bedroom and sobbed. Erik finally fell into a state of partial unconsciousness in which the mind wanders uneasily from scene to scene, from place to place without the control of reason, yet unable to divest itself of vague senses, in his case, suffering. ΟΤ 306……………..

His mind at last anchored on something steady and solid, a dream. He dreamed that he was walking through the graveyard where his boy had just been buried. In his endeavor to find the site of the boy’s grave, he ran all around the cemetery; it was very dark without a ray of light anywhere near or far. Suddenly he heard and saw a group of children jumping out of a freshly dug grave, tripping across the road looking and mocking him as they passed. Then he turned and saw half a dozen silver-headed little children crowding around him, briefly shining their piercing eyes on him. He brought his arm up before his eyes to block their brilliant glances as all the children seemed herded down and away into a grave a few yards from where he was standing, stricken with horror.

He ran to find the exit gate and was still running when he heard voices coming from the bottom of an old grave. He stopped, taking time to catch the breath that his running and horror had for the moment taken from him.

Then all sound seemed to freeze. There was no sound anywhere, not even the rustle of a leaf. The profound stillness that enveloped that solemn landscape made him question his ability to hear.

Abruptly, a million echoes of voices poured from the end of the cemetery.  Those voices became louder but more distinct and gradually elevated to ethereal singing sounds, as if they were coming down from Heaven.

“Daddy! Daddy!” a lone voice echoed out from another place, but the source and the place were invisible to him and the chorus had stopped.

“Randy?” replied Erik  “Randy, where are you, honey?”

“I’m here, Daddy, you can’t see me.”

“Why boy?  Why?”

“I have no face, Daddy.  I lost my face before my soul left me. I am going to Heaven, Daddy. I’ll be in Heaven in a little while.”  Then silence again returned.

Suddenly after that farewell, Erik saw a brilliant ball of illumination speeding across the cemetery a few feet off the ground; leaping over the high tombstones, it quickly disappeared in the sky.