Once the funeral got started, time passed by very quickly, three hours. And during this time, we had Patrick, Alice, and a few of Father Jefferson’s closest friends and family do a eulogy about him. After that, we’d walk up to the casket to say our final goodbye.

When it was my turn to walk up to the casket, I ingrained the old man’s face into my memory. His head, once filled with salt and pepper hair, was now bald. His body looked frail, and his skin had signs of bruising.

“It must’ve been tough on you.”

I whispered as I silently gave him a prayer, hoping that now, he could finally put his demons to rest and be able to live peacefully within the paradise in the sky.

Because he sure as hell deserved it. After all, it takes a certain person to go to war, come back, become a priest, and set up a church in one of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods and try to make it better. 

“Ama~zing gra~ce. How swe~et, the sound.”

Once everybody was able to say their final goodbyes, the church choir started to sing a few songs to help settle the mood. And during these songs, I heard and saw a couple of people cry, such as Father Jefferson’s sister and her kids.

I also saw Alice silently shedding tears. She’s been sitting with the church’s orphanage group since the beginning of the service. I wanted to go over there and comfort her a bit but Patrick was already on the job. With similarly red eyes, he put his left arm around her shoulders and hugged her tightly.

As for me, other than having a lump in my throat, I’m doing fine. It hurts to see him go but I got to be strong for I’ve experienced the death of somebody close to me numerous times.

One moment, you could be joking with your bud about how bad the food is while you're in a foxhole, and the next moment, you're closing his wide eyes forever because he got sawed in half by a magic cannon. 

...War was funny like that. 

After experiencing things like that for an untold amount of time, you...slowly start to become numb. Numb to the pain, numb to the loss, numb to...everything.

It’s quite a scary feeling.

But luckily, thanks to a few friends on the other side, I thankfully didn’t fall into such a state. However, despite that, the damage from the war over there is done. 

...I can no longer go back to how I was.

“If you’d please stand. We’ll be moving to the graveyard.”

The priest directed as he stood at the podium. His name was William Lawson and he was Father Jefferson’s closest friend. He served in Vietnam with Father Jefferson and is still in the military. He’s a military chaplain. He helped coordinate the funeral.

“Marcus, can you follow me for a minute?”

Mr. William called out my name as he stepped away from the podium and approached me. With a puzzled expression, I ask.

“Uh, where to?”

“...To Tyson’s study room. There’s something I want to show you there.”

“Want to show me?”

What’s in Father Jefferson’s study room worth showing me? There are only books about the bible’s scriptures. 

“Yes. Tyson told me to give it to you now matter what. And considering that the moment the funeral ends you’ll be sent back to prison, it’s better to give it to you know than later.”

“If that’s the case, Kari, can you go ahead without me?”

I turned my attention towards Kari who was standing by my side and said. She decided to stick with me since I’m one of the only two people she's familiar with at this entire funeral. 

“Sure. You can go on and do what you gotta do. I’ll go regroup with Alice.”

Kari said as she started walking with the crowd. Within it, I can see her making her way towards Alice’s group, which was near the casket behind the podium. 

“Lead the way.”

I said to Mr. William as I glanced at Alice’s group. At the casket, Patrick and five other guys are acting as pallbearers. They picked it up and started moving towards the graveyard.

“...”

It would be a lie if I said I wasn’t jealous. I, too, also wanted to be a pallbearer. I wanted to have the honor of accompanying the old man to his final resting place. Sigh, I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

“Marcus, you coming? You don’t want to miss the burial do you?”

Mr. William, who was already a ways ahead of me, calls out, snapping me from my thoughts. With a flustered expression, I hurriedly caught up to him.

“I-I’m fine. I was just lost in my thoughts.”

Not minding it much, Mr. William responded with a simple ‘okay’ and continued walking. Not saying much after that, I followed in behind him.

***

Once we got into Father Jefferson’s study room.

“Tyson was like a brother to me.”

These were the words Mr. William said. He was holding a picture of him and young Father Jefferson during their time in the Vietnam War. They were posing in front of stacks of ammo boxes while carrying an M-16s.

“In the jungles of ‘nam, I knew he always had my back. He’d go to great lengths to make sure that I or anyone else in our squad made it back home. There was this one time where he infiltrated an enemy’s base of operations to rescue one of our brothers.”

“Really?”

I asked, surprised. I can’t exactly picture Father Jefferson having long hair and a red bandana tied around his head as he silently takes out his enemies one by one.

“Yeah. When Tyson heard about what happened he immediately asked our commanding officer to go and rescue him. But sadly, due to not wanting to alert the enemy of where we were located and potentially fall into an ambush, our commanding officer denied it. ‘It was too risky.’ the commander said. Which in my opinion, was complete horseshit. Sigh, that’s what happens when you have a scrawny ass CIA squint as your commander I guess.”

“Father Jefferson was pretty mad when heard that, huh?” 

“You bet he was. Tyson was so mad that veins were showing up on his face! He wanted to strangle our commanding officer. If it wasn’t for me and a few of our squad members holding him back, he probably would’ve done it.”

“Haha! I can imagine him now.”

Father Jefferson was an easy-going type of guy who’d hardly get mad at anything. Whether it’d be breaking a whatnot or a window, worst-case scenario, all you’d get is a sermon and timeout. 

However, when Father Jefferson did get angry, he turned into a whole other person. I experienced this first hand when I accidentally broke his vintage edition of the Rolling Stones album ‘Some Girls’ when playing with the younger kids in his study. The pressure he gave off when he was in full rage mode was terrifying! 

Oblivious to my thoughts, Mr. William continued.

“After finding out that the commander wasn’t going to do anything to bring our boy back home, Tyson decided to take things into his own hands. He asked us if we wanted to come too but because we were too afraid at the time, we decided not to...The CIA was a real stickler for staying ‘under the radar’ back then you see. This was even more so when all the protests at the time were about wanting the government to pull out all their troops from Vietnam...If we were to cause a disturbance, resulting in the CIA unable to complete their mission of stopping the spread of communism, we’d be severely punished...Sorry, I went a little off tangent.” 

Snapping out of his rambling, Mr. William said apologetically. Shaking my head from side to side, I said unbothered.

“Don’t worry about it. Hearing stuff like this is kinda interesting.”

It’s not every day I can hear the war stories of the old man. He was never one to talk about his past. And on the days he did talk about it, it would usually be late at night when he had a little too much to drink.

Sigh, the stuff he'd talk about.

“Where was I...? Armed with only a knife, a pistol, and a suppressed grease gun, he infiltrated the enemy base alone. While he was in there, he gathered intel, took down a few enemies, and managed to successfully rescue our captured comrade. But to put the icing on the cake, he left them a little surprise. Using enemy grenades, Tyson booby-trapped the surrounding area of the base and as well as their weapons cache and communications. Once he was done with that, he, with our captured brother in tow, safely made it back to our base.”

“Did he get in trouble when he got back?”

Because from my understanding, going ‘alone’, means that he pretty much went into the enemy base without permission. A.K.A. AWOL.

“Trouble? Ha! When our commanding officer found out what he’d done, he couldn’t punish him even if he wanted to! With Tyson going temporarily AWOL, he managed to gather intelligence about the next ambush, hindered their communications, destroyed their weapons, and saved a captured soldier. If Tyson was to get punished after gaining such achievements, the commanding officer would’ve gotten the beating of his life! Sigh, this goes to show you how much Tyson valued friendship. He’d go to hell and back just to make sure they’re okay.”

Putting the picture down on Father Jefferson’s desk, Mr. William said with a voice filled with nostalgia. It seems that he was revisiting fond memories. 

“...”

Leaving him to take a trip down memory lane, I slowly digest what Mr. William said to me. Sigh, old man, who’d thought you’d have such stories hidden! If you’d told me stories like these when I was smaller, I wouldn’t have had much trouble going to bed.

“Sigh, it’s a shame to see him go. Even though I'd warned him about smoking, who’d thought that lung cancer would be the one to take him out.”

“I remember him always saying that if he was to die, he wanted to die in the middle of some nice, soft boobs. That way, if he doesn’t go to heaven, he’d at least know what it feels like.”

“Haha! That sure sounds like Tyson. Hahaha!” 

“Hahaha…!”

We laughed for a good minute before…

BANG!

A gunshot rang out followed by the faint sound of a trumpet playing. It was the iconic song of 'Taps'.

“...it seems that I have carried on for a little bit too long. Let me give you what I was asked to give.”

Using a key he fished out of his pocket to open one of the drawers in Father Jefferson’s desk, Mr. William retrieves a envelope and hands it to me.

“What is this?”

I ask while inspecting the envelope. It had a wax seal stamped on it and was addressed to me in the familiar sloppy handwriting of Father Jefferson. There also seemed to be something in it. It was small, square, and hard.

“I don’t know what it is. I only know that it was written a few hours before he went to the hospital. He asked me to give it to you should he die while he was in there.”

“Before he went to the hospital?”

That was about seven months ago. He had to go to the hospital because he started coughing up blood and the pain in his chest started to become unbearable. 

This is...probably the last thing he wrote before he died.

Should I open it?

“I think you should hold off on opening it for now. You don’t wanna miss the rest of the burial.”

As if reading my mind, Mr. Williams said.

“...Okay. I’ll save for when the funeral is over.”

Placing the envelope into the pocket of my hoodie, I said resolutely. Nothing is going to stop me from reading one of the last things my grandpa gave me. Even if I have to smuggle it back into prison, I will read it!

“Come on. Let’s head out there. Tyson can’t be buried without the priest there.”

Patting my shoulder, Mr. William walked by me and said. A few moments later, I was the only one in the room.

“...”

Glancing around, I look at books about the bible's scriptures on the bookcases and the group pictures of the kids Father Jefferson raised over the years. All the kids in these photos had smiles on their faces. They were happy.

I was happy.

These photos are proof of his achievements. Proof of his goals.

"I'm going to miss this place."

Turning around, I said as I walked out of the room.

Because it's going to be a while before I can ever come back.

****

Author's Note

- I do not know how funerals usually proceed so please forgive me if I got something wrong.