EPILOGUE
I
almost missed it. To tell you the truth
I'm not sure why I read the obituaries that day--I usually don't. When I saw the name "James Robert
Smedley" I just had to wonder. It
was he. I had to look a couple of times;
I'd never seen him dressed up, but clearly it was he.
I had
listened to his tales over countless cups of coffee, yet I didn't even know
where he had lived. I thought, maybe a
little selfishly, that I could find out about him from those who attended the
funeral, that I could finally find out just where on the map Hog Back Ridge was
located, that I could put a date to the beginning and end of Parson Smedley's
ministry.
I guess
it was at the funeral that I changed my mind.
The funeral director had asked me if I would mind helping to carry the
casket. No formal pallbearers had been
selected, and the staff of the funeral home and I were about the only ones
there who didn't look like candidates for the next funeral.
What if
he just made it all up--a lonely old man creating a past for himself and
populating it with creatures of his imagination? Maybe he was Smedley, Jim Bob, the preacher’s
lanky son, but humility prevented him from revealing it. Or, maybe there was no Hog Back Ridge, no
little meeting house with a stop sign plugging the hole in the cellar, no
mule-riding parson named Smedley.
I guess
the whole thing had become too much a part of me. I couldn't stand the thought of finding out
that it wasn't that way at all. Maybe
when I'm older and braver I'll do the journalistically responsible thing, but
for now all that I know about my friend is contained on a faded obituary that I
carry in my wallet. And, a bunch of
wonderful tales that I carry in my heart.
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