"The Lord is my shepherd," he's saying, slowly. And it takes him a good three syllables just to say the word, “Lord.”
He stands beside the casket, sweating through his suit. His white hair looks nearly perfect.
This is Brewton, Alabama. The family of the deceased sits motionless with swollen faces, dabbing their eyes. He's old, he talks with a drawl that won't quit. He has the Bible open, but it's only for show. He could recite this passage from memory.
For the life of me, I don't know why anyone—myself included—bothers to pick up a pen and write anything. Everything you'd ever need to know; he's saying it.
“He maketh
me to lie down in green pastures...”
The sound of a bird chirping competes with the preacher's voice. Someone ought to shoot that bird.
"He restoreth my soul..."
I once knew a girl whose husband died when his tractor rolled over. At the funeral, she sat beneath the big tent, stone-faced while the preacher spoke. Her two children beside her.
That morning, she told me, “I'm too stunned to cry. I keep expecting it to hit, but every time I try to cry, nothing comes.”
That day, she didn't…