the white lace tablecloth

Once inside the church building, I noticed our white lace table cloth. This morning wasn’t the first time we’ve loaned out this tablecloth. We spread the same cloth on the table when our friends borrowed our dining room to host their son’s wedding party in April.

But this morning the cloth wasn’t borrowed for a wedding.

There were a couple hundred of us who stood and watched as the women carried the body-sized box inside and placed it on the white cloth.

It was a $60 coffin—no need for fancy English words in this part of the world. Dead bodies are placed in coffins, buried under shovelfuls of dirt, and eaten by termites.

She was their mom, their daughter, their friend, and their neighbor.

Heather participated in the funeral for her baby last December. Now, just seven months later, we were all gathered around her own coffin.

It was sad. 

All of it. 

Her children’s faces. 

The cheap box. 

The solemn-ness of the message. 

The end of a life.