I don't mean for this little passage to be morbid at all, in fact I was struck by it long before I knew I was sick. It strikes me more as being about preachers (of which I was one) and people, and real community. I think our Priests at All Saints would understand what Burley is getting at, and they have demonstrated real love to us over and over, making our church a city of refuge for our family.
This comes from a 'A Place on Earth'. I remembered this section from the first time I read it, and read it aloud to Melanie a month or so ago. It's when Burley sees the preacher going up to Mat's house when they find out that Virgil is missing. And Burley recalls the preacher's visit when Tom died.
"Wednesday afternon, after the news had pretty well got around, I seen Brother Piston going in up there at Mat's. And I says to Jayber, "I know the speech he's going to make." And so would all of us. He come and said all that to me after we knew Tom was dead. And none of it quite fit. You could say that he didn't have too good of an idea who he was talking to. (As Jayber says, when we seen Brother Piston go in up at Mat's, the worst thing about preachers is they think they've got to say something whether anything can be said or not.) While he was having his say I sat there and thought my thoughts. Here in a way he'd come to say the last words over Tom. And what claim did he have to do it? He never done a day's work with us in his life, nor could have. He never did stand up in his ache and sweat and go down the row with us. He never tasted any of our sweat in the water jug. And I was thinking: Preacher, who are you to speak of Tom to me, who knew him, and knew the very smell of him?
And there he sat in your granddaddy's chair, with his consolations and his old speech. Just putting our names in the blanks. And I thought: Preacher, he's dead, he's not here, and you'll never know what it is that's gone.
The difference between people is what has got to be taken notice of. There's the preacher who has what I reckon you would call a knack for the Hereafter. He's not much mixed with this world. As far as he's concerned there is no difference, or not much, between Tom Coulter and Virgil Feltner. Their names fit into the riddle he thinks he knows the answer to. I wouldn't try to say he ain't right. I do say that some people's knack is for the Here. Anyhow, that's the talent I'm stuck with. For us it's important to keep in mind who Tom was. And for Mat and them I judge it's important to know who is meant when they speak of Virgil. We don't forget them after somebody who never knew them has said, "Dead in the service of his country" and "Rest in peace." That's not the way these accounts are kept. We don't rest in peace. The life of a good man who has died belongs to the people who cared about him, and ought to, and maybe itself is a as much comfort as ought to be asked or offered. And surely talk of a reunion in Heaven is thin comfort to people who need each other here as much as we do.
I ain't saying I don't believe there's a Heaven. I surely do hope there is. That surely would pay off a lot of mortgages. But I do say it ain't easy to believe. And even while I hope for it, I've got to admit I'd rather go to Port William."