Dead to Me

A man has a funeral for his son and is surprised to see the woman he blames for the murder also attended.

It took some time for me to arrange the flowers; my wife, Tammy, usually handled such affairs. Since she’s been gone, I often found myself at a loss of how to make things pleasing to the eye; the gift of aesthetics had missed me, and skipped straight to my son, a trait he inherited from his mother who was able to turn our dank and smelly basement into a lustrous library with soft smelling candles and bright holly wood for most of the furniture. The challenge was even further complicated because there was no casket, nobody had been left for me to bury. The perpetrator had seen to that thoroughly. However, I was able to get mostly tulips for the flower arrangement, red, my son Peter’s favorite; he used to say that they reminded him of God. All things considered, the turnout to the funeral was impressive. Although only a couple of Peter’s friends attended, there was a great turnout from the Evangelical Valley Presbyterian Church’s older members.

             Pastor Roland Hansen gave a very traditional service; he discussed the nature of God’s sovereignty and how those that belong to Christ will be united with Him in all eternity.  It was his typical sermon for funerals. Yet somehow, he seemed more nervous about it than he had before. This eulogy was the opposite of the service he rendered for my dear wife only a year prior; he stumbled in his speech more, interjecting "ums" and dry coughs, neither of these are characteristic of his typical charismatic and confident style which had kept me coming to his church for more than thirty years.

 As he spoke, I remembered the day he baptized my son. My wife and I were new to the church and were first drawn to its classical style and intimate size; we stayed for the confident and powerful preaching of Pastor Hansen and the loving fellowship of the church body. My son was baptized in front of the small altar at the front of the church. Behind my memory, Pastor Hansen was still stumbling through his sermon, but on the day of my son’s baptism he was fire on icy hearts as he exhorted myself and my wife to teach Peter to read the word of God, that we instruct him in the principles of our religion, that we pray with him daily, and that we set the example of piety and godliness before him. Sitting in the cushioned white pew I began to wonder if I had truly done my duty to my son. Maybe if I had prayed with him more, or been a better example, or read my bible in front of him instead of watching the Seahawks lose bitterly to the Oilers during a dark season for the Seahawks.

I will admit that my priorities were off. So many times…

 During the day, I ran my business, helping farmers disembowel their pigs or cutting their calves into sirloin and ground beef. When I came home at night, I found myself too exhausted to take much interest in my son’s young life. I took him fishing from time to time, but my fathering began and ended at the small fishing hole the Bureau of Land Management faithfully kept brimming with trout. Even this became less frequent after the boy started high school. As his voice changed so did his attitude towards fish. At this point, he much preferred to be around his mother and learn how to decorate the church, cook delicious food with basil and dill, and learn how to grow fresh foods and majestic tulips in our quarter-acre garden. I didn’t see anything unnatural in this. If the boy wanted to cook more than fish or dig in the dirt more than throw a football then who was I to correct that behavior. Perhaps this is where I made my biggest mistake.

At some point during the awkward eulogy, there was a small hush in the crowd, I could feel the people around me stir and slowly resettle, but I did not look around to see what the commotion was about. Instead, I transfixed my wearied gaze on Pastor Hansen. He was looking at the back of the single-room church. His eyes narrowed for a moment, and then he resumed his sermon; however, the nature of his speech changed. Instead of talking about being gloriously reunited with our loved ones, he switched to a discussion of confessing our sins to one another that we might be cleansed. As he talked, his eyes shared as much conviction of his spirit with me as they did with the back of the church. He no longer stammered over his words but instead spoke with a fervor not heard from his pulpit since he begged his congregants not to get caught up in the drums of war after the 9/11 terror attacks.

“The fervent prayer of a righteous man can indeed overcome great walls of pride and sin. But let that prayer be open, let our sins be open; confess these sins to each other, do not let them hide in the dark, as if we be children of the dark. When is the time for repentance? Even now, if you hear the voice calling to you from the depths of darkness, out of the coldness of your stony hearts, turn your face to the light that this darkness may be warmed, and you may walk in the light even as Christ is in the light.”

At the end of his eulogy, he offered a time for people to come up and share their memories of my beloved son, but the congregation held their peace. After a long and silent moment, the congregation sang “Nearer My God to Thee;” a favorite of my son. The song wafted over the small church and, to my soul, sounded as though it was sung by the Mississippi Mass Choir, although there was only a fraction of that many voices. I wept softly, not just for my son, but for the lost opportunity to pull him from death. As my rolling tears stained my jacket and my pants, I desperately wished that I could confess my sins to him, that I could tell him that I failed him as a father and that he did not have to go down the road he was going down. He did not have to give himself over to a strange woman, a woman we both knew sought to kill him.

As the singers ended, the congregation slowly got up and left the small chapel and headed downstairs for the refreshments generously prepared by Mrs. Goff who taught my son to play the piano. Some of the patrons lightly touched my shoulder, others silently shuffled past, most avoided direct eye contact with me. There was mixed sympathy in their eyes. My son was not faithful when that woman talked him into ending his life, and many in the congregation believed him to be among the unchosen, although they would never directly admit as much to me.

The pastor was the last to go downstairs, he put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a sad smile, and then looked behind me. There was an odd kind of hope behind his grey and chiseled eyes, a determination that he had expressed with me ever since Peter fell in with the woman Naomi. Even as I lost all hope that my son could be redeemed, and my will to fight drained from my bones after Tammy died, he continued to fight for both Peter and Naomi, believing that both could be redeemed. I never understood how.

As he left, I was deliberately unaware of the final presence left in the chapel. It was this person who changed the tone of the pastor’s sermon. I heard the small folding chair in the back groan slightly as they got up, and I listened as high-heeled shoes made their way to my spot of prayer by the altar. They sat behind me, the voice was familiar and deceptively soft.

“I was not sure that I would or should come here today, but I wanted to thank you for providing me this closure, Dad.”

Hearing that voice sobered me, and rudely disrupted the quiet moment I was having in memory of my son. In a harsh whisper I responded, “I did not do it for you, and do not call me Dad, you have no right. You may call me Avram, or preferably Mr. Scarrow.”

There was a shudder of a sob behind me, the words landed exactly where I had wanted them to land. She had killed my son, not directly, but through seduction. “I came from you,” she said, “I exist because of you.”

I ignored this statement even though there was a certain truth in it. Surely Peter would never have been seduced by Naomi had I been the kind of father he needed me to be, but could I confess this sin?

“I remember how we used to go fishing,” she said, her voice taking on a gentle quality again, almost joyful.

“That was Peter that I took fishing, and he did not enjoy it.”

“I did enjoy it,” a sigh, “OK, I didn’t always enjoy it, but what thirteen-year-old likes to get up at 4 am?”

“Quit talking as if it were you. You were not there; it was Peter that I took. You did not even exist until Peter graduated from high school and after he divorced his wife.”

“I know you like to think that” she said, “somehow it makes your life easier to believe that I made this choice because of the tragedy of my marriage falling apart after the first year. But I lived in Peter long before that time, even long before you stopped taking me fishing, and stopped going to my junior high football games or attending my piano recitals. I was in Peter from the beginning.”

I did not want to be tender to this woman, but somewhere in her Peter may still be alive. There was a part of me awakened by the pain in her voice, as if Peter were calling out through her and trying to reach me. My soul responded to her, “I was not a good father to Peter. There was much I should’ve done that I neglected, and often I was harsher in my discipline than I should have.” Looking at the altar where the last picture of Peter before he started taking hormones and testosterone blockers stood, slightly obscured between two tulips I said, “I’m so sorry Peter. I was given all the tools to make you the man God called you to be. I even ran a butcher shop that I never took you to, for Christ’s sake. You even begged me to take you there, even from a young age. You begged me. By the time I deemed you old enough you had already lost interest.”

“Oh Dad, my decision really had nothing to do with you. I always knew, deep inside of me, that this is who I am. I know that gender dysphoria is something you don’t understand, not that anyone really can, but it was so hard living that lie. I love you Dad, I always have, and I always will.” Even though she meant the words as a comfort, the softness of it was an affront to my ears, I felt the offense of Naomi’s voice, and even her last name…

“If that’s true, then why did you convince Peter to change his last name to Sanada?”

“I chose Sanada because it means genuine. You and Mom did not accept my decision, you even threatened to disown me when I came out to you who. I needed to be genuine. If you want to know the truth…”

“No,” I said, “I do not want to hear out of your mouth again that Peter never existed.”

She sighed again and stayed silent. Eventually I heard her sit back in the pew, she did not move for a long moment, and neither did I. We let the silence of the church fill our ears, and the creaking wood of the old, settling church played it’s mournful song. When she sat forward her tone had changed, “are you still a deacon here?”

“I am.”

“Can I speak to you as a deacon?”

I sighed, but turn to look at her, doing my best to put on my “deacon face,” a face that says I am deeply concerned for your soul, and I hope God is calling you to salvation, “I can make no promises, but I will do the best I can.” Her composed face was streamed with dry tears, but her makeup remained perfect.

“Is Solomon in Heaven?”

“That is an interesting question, why would you think he wouldn’t be?”

“Because he did evil toward the end of his life, and he built up idols to strange gods, provoking the Lord to anger.”

“We are all prone to sin, but God can forgive us our sins. It is generally believed that the book of Ecclesiastes is Solomon’s letter of repentance. If we turn from our wicked ways, Jesus is faithful and just to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”

“What if the world thinks that something is a sin, but it really isn’t?”

“What is sin is sin, regardless of what anyone thinks of it, if you were chosen of God then you will hear His voice and He will cleanse you of all sin” I was reaching again for Peter, my voice pleading for the hope of resurrection.

“But if a man never comes to conviction of a sin, even if he were to be repented of many other sins and trusts in Jesus Christ?”

I felt my moment, this is where I might actually be able to reach him. Maybe, just maybe, Peter heard me through all the no-smear makeup and mutilation. “The sheep will hear the voice of Jesus Christ, and they will respond to Him. I am as certain of that as I am of the elect coming to Christ. Jesus will not let one of His own stay in sin. If the sheep is His, truly His, he will hear His voice, repent, and live a new life before God.”

“You know Dad, I always thought so too.” And with that, she handed me a small, folded piece of paper. “I will always love you Dad, and I hope this is not the last goodbye. But if it is, I forgive you.” Sniffling, she slowly walked out of the church. Sitting forward I opened her little note written on a torn piece of paper that looks like it may have been from the back of the funerals program:

“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Exodus 20:5-6” Under this scripture, it simply read “Pornography.”

Did she know? Has she always known? All this time I was trying to save Peter, and at the same time, Peter, through Naomi, was trying to save me. The verse had a special significance to it, it was the one verse I preached on while working as a deacon for the church, and I used it to discuss hypocrisy. It was the Sunday after Peter had confessed to his mother and me that he was transitioning. I tied the scripture to the attitudes of the Pharisees and how, even though they looked clean and goodly, they were as whitewashed tombs. At this point in Peter's life, he was the choir leader for the church, and he had put forth a front of Godliness. I was hoping to confront that very hypocrisy and expose his very hatred for God.

When I got home that night, I pulled out my collection, which dated back at least thirty years. I admired some of the women on the covers and thumbed through the stack. I was confronted, and I wrestled. These women, although miles from me, seemed to be smiling at me. It was as if they were peering through the magazine and looking into my verry soul, desiring me, loving me. It was a grand illusion, and it was the illusion that I loved, craved, and needed. Was I hating God? Was I denying the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ? Or is this a sin God will wink at, seeing as I am a lonely old man whose wife and son are now both dead?  There was the thought that I was replacing God with these magazines. I opened a random magazine to a random page, a blonde was playfully washing a midnight black firebird bare chested. Her breasts were large and obviously not real, just as the seductive smile on her face was not real, the twinkle in her shining blue eyes like polished marble staring directly into my eyes, all of it fake. Sighing, I slipped the collection back in its place in the attic. There they would remain, my secret comfort.

Who is Naomi to judge me? She killed my son.

Author's Note

The first draft, only minor edits have been applied.