Tamra had the sign taped to the kitchen door before the last hymn had stopped ringing in my ears.
It was a clean white sheet of paper, printed off a computer. It had neat ruled lines for names and times. And across the top, in a cheerful round font, it said:
FUNERAL LUNCHEON SIGN-UP. NEW PROCESS EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.
She stood in front of it with her hands folded at her waist. The way a person stands when she’s expecting to be thanked.
“I know change is hard,” she said.
She said it to the five of us. We were standing there in our aprons in the church basement, with nowhere left to put our hands.
“But I talked to Pastor Shay, and we both think it’s time for some fresh ideas down here. We’ve found a wonderful catering service out of Grand Island. Prairie Table. They do a lovely spread for sixty people. Soup to dessert. And nobody has to stand over a hot stove at seven in the morning when they ought to be upstairs grieving with everybody else.”
Louise set down the roasting pan she’d been holding since we walked in.
It made a small sound against the counter. Not a slam. Just a sound.
“We’ve been doing the seven in the morning for thirty years, Tamra,” Louise said. “None of us minded.”
“I know,” Tamra said. And she did sound like she meant it kindly. “That’s exactly why it’s time. You’ve all given so much. Now you can come sit with everybody else at the service. Doesn’t that sound nice?”
Nobody answered her.
Wanda was looking at the coffee urns. The two big hundred-cup ones. Eunice’s husband had bolted a special shelf to the wall for them, years ago, so they’d never tip over.
Marge was looking at the floor.
I was looking at the sign.
I’d like to tell you I said something wise in that moment. The kind of line you remember later and feel proud of.
I didn’t.
I untied my apron. I folded it the way my mother taught me to fold a dish towel. Thirds, then half. And I hung it on the hook by the door, where it had hung for thirty years.
“Well,” I said. “I suppose we’ll see you at church, Tamra.”
And I walked up the stairs into the sanctuary. I sat down in the pew where my husband would have been sitting if he’d lived to see this day.
I didn’t cry until I got home.
My name is Opal Deane. I’m seventy-two years old.
I’ve lived in this little Nebraska town my whole life. It’s so small you could walk every street in it in the time it takes a pot roast to brown.
And for thirty years, ever since I was forty-two and had just buried my own mother, I’ve been one of five women who cooked the funeral lunch at Zion Lutheran Church.
Louise Pruitt. Wanda Keel. Eunice Brandt. Marge Holt. And me.
We weren’t an official committee. Nobody elected us. We were just the ones who showed up the first time somebody died. And then we kept showing up.
Through our own husbands’ funerals. Through each other’s husbands. Through every farmer and schoolteacher and baby this town lost.
Until showing up was just what we did. The way breathing is just what you do.
Sophia Rivers is an experienced News Content Editor with a sharp eye for detail and a passion for delivering accurate and engaging news stories. At TheArchivists, she specializes in curating, editing, and presenting news content that informs and resonates with a global audience.
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