1、The last to approach the coffin was the private duty nurse, Maureen, a battler from the look of her and nostranger to either life or death. When, with a smile, she let the dirt slip slowly across her curled palm and outthe side of her hand onto the coffin, the gesture loo
2、ked like the prelude to a carnal act. Clearly this was aman to whom she'd once given much thought.That was the end. No special point had been made. Did they all say what they had to say? No, they didn't,and of course they did. Up and down the state that day, there'd been
3、five hundred funerals like his, routine,ordinary, and except for the thirty wayward seconds furnished by the sons — and Howie's resurrecting withsuch painstaking precision the world as it innocently existed before the invention of death, life perpetual intheir father-crea
4、ted Eden, a paradise just fifteen feet wide by forty feet deep disguised as an old-stylejewelry store — no more or less interesting than any of the others. But then it's the commonness that's mostwrenching, the registering once more of the fact of death that overwhelms ev
5、erything.In a matter of minutes, everybody had walked away — wearily and tearfully walked away from our species'least favorite activity — and he was left behind. Of course, as when anyone dies, though many were grief-stricken, others remained unperturbed, or found themsel
6、ves relieved, or, for reasons good or bad, weregenuinely pleased.
