Good-bye and Amen by Beth Gutcheon Read Free Book Online

“The Kingdom of Heaven Is Like This”? Help.
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    The hardest part for most, when they first arrive here, is understanding that they’re dead. It’s every bit as shocking as being born. (Being born! The lights, the noise, the air on your skin…I still shudder.) At first, some keep going back, sure there’s been a mistake, especially if the departure was abrupt. If they’re angry or persistent enough they make themselves felt, even seen or heard. A few find this perversely thrilling and keep it up, beyond the normal leavetaking or comforting of those left behind. Not a good choice. They can get stuck outside the great flow of spiritual matter. But most soon find that the life they just lived in the body is less and less compelling. Perhaps like a long distance call on a signal that breaks up, so when it fades out altogether it comes as a relief.
    Usually there will be guides waiting to help. Then new steps and stages. Just as you were taught, just as you expected. Masks and dodges forged in life fall away, and what remains is what you chose to become, with all those choices you made every day when in the body. It’s very interesting. Free will.
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    Edith Faithful I’m named Edith Bing for my Danish great-grandmother, but I look like my father. Mother’s eyes, but the rest of it. I’m six feet tall. As you can see I like that; I wear high heels. But inside I have Mother’s brain. Neither of us can do math or read maps.
    For the lottery, I was sharing the maid’s room on the third floor with Sylvie. Sam was in California, and couldn’t come, but we had his list.
    At lunch, Mom told me she hadn’t gotten Nina’s piano for me. She was quite unwrapped about it. I’d love to have something of Nina’s but I don’t play any more, and they have a piano at the rectory. It belonged to my grandmother Hazel and it isn’t very good but how much does that matter if it’s never played? She got me a set of silver instead. Meanwhile, Sam wanted the monogrammed barware, and Sylvie wanted Granny Syd’s fur coat, and I wanted the beautiful topaz ring Granny Syd wore when she dressed up. There’s a story there.
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    Nora Applegate Annie and I were bunking in the bedroom above Grandpapa’s music studio, and Adam and Charlesie slept downstairs on the couches. There’s a TV and VCR, so at Christmas and such we tended to congregate there in the evenings while the ’rents played bridge in the house, or whatever they did.
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    Annie Applegate Uncle Jimmy’s a scary-good bridge player. I played a lot in college, but he’s way out of my league.Mummy and Dad are both good. Normal is terrible because he never shuts up. Josslyn doesn’t play. Aunt Monica only plays if they need her; she’d rather read. And let’s face it, the last year or two, she’s been pretty deep into the chardonnay in the evenings. Daddy plays just the same, sober or plastered (ask me how I know), but most people don’t.
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    Nora Applegate After dinner the night before the lottery no one was even thinking of playing bridge or going to bed. Everyone started going from room to room again, opening drawers or pawing through boxes and saying, Oh my God, look at this. It was exhilarating. We were all still up at two or three in the morning. I found a picture of Mom and Monica dressed in matching Hopalong Cassidy outfits, with little cap guns in their holsters. Mom was a little chubby, and the hair was unfortunate. Monica had this cute little Dutch-boy haircut.
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    Jimmy Moss I walked into the playroom downstairs and found Monica sitting on the floor in her robe and jammies, wearing a mink cape and a church hat of Mother’s, and long blue kid gloves. It had gotten cold down there so she put on whatever was at hand. She’s a very droll woman, my sister. We sat down there for over an hour, sorting photographs. Astronomers must feel like this