“Why are you sad?”
I looked down. There was my little friend leaning on the fence too.
“I don’t know that I am sad really,” I replied.
“You look sad.”
“I was thinking,” I replied. We carried on drinking in the glory of the day in silence for a while.
“This place is so quiet, peaceful and beautiful and yet everybody here is so sad,” said Justme.
“They are sad because they have all lost someone dear to them,” I told him.
“Lost somebody? Why can’t they find them then?”
I searched for a better way to put it. Playing with words did not seem to be very helpful so I decided to play is straight.
“They are all grieving for someone who has died,” I said. “This is a crematorium. This is where people go when they are dead.”
“When people are dead they go to heaven. Heaven is a happy place. I bet you can have fish fingers and ice-cream there every day.” He grinned at me mischievously.
“I am not too sure about the fish fingers and ice-cream,” I laughed. “But our spirits leave our bodies and go the heaven when we die. We then have to dispose of the bodies they do not want any more.”
“So the body in the coffin here today is empty," he said thoughtfully.
“Yes. That’s right.” End of problem I thought. But no…..
“If the body is empty because the person has already gone to heaven, why is everybody so sad?”
Oh Help! One question just leads to another more difficult question. How did I get into this?
"Everyone has their own special reason for being here. They are all relations or friends of Bob. They all loved him and they have come to tell him that and to say ‘Good bye’. They are all sad because they will miss him in their lives.”
“Although he is not here himself, Bob will know that you are here and why you came, won’t he?”
“Yes.” I said confidently. “Bob will know.”
“If Bob knows today, he will know tomorrow and every day for ever and ever and ever. And, if you can tell Bob you love him today you can tell him you love him every day for ever and ever and ever and he will know.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” I agreed, wondering what was coming next.
“Then tell me why you said that everybody was here because they had lost somebody.”
“I guess we haven’t really lost anybody at all,” I conceded. “I guess that things will be different without Bob living here amongst us but I know he will always live in our hearts. Nothing really lost.”
“Then, why are you sad?”
“I told you I was not sure that I was sad. Now I know that I am not. I am happy to have had Bob share a part of my life. I am happy that he has gone to a happy place and when I have said 'Good bye' I shall happily get on with my day.
Justme looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye.
“Maybe you can be sad and happy at the same time,” he said.
“Maybe.”
I turned and walked across the road to join the others gathering for the service.
The sun shone brightly as I drove down the long driveway from the crematorium. The sky was crystal blue with not a cloud in sight. The falling leaves continued to float earthwards. The day was beautiful. Just as it should be. Just the sort of day when Bob would have abandoned the work he was doing on my car in preference to a day’s fishing! He was incorrigible and I would miss him. But, Oh how happy I was to have had him as a friend.
