Chapter 20

The morning was gray and overcast as I pulled into the church parking lot for Willie’s funeral service. I’d driven alone, letting Hanna and Kat, who had come back into town for the service, get there before me while I tried to mentally prepare myself for the service. It had been almost a week since Willie passed, but I still wasn’t completely over losing him.

I sat there for a few minutes, just thinking, before finally heading into the church. The lot was already filled with cars, which didn’t surprise me. Willie was beloved, not just in Wellsville but the whole area. Inside the church, I was met with the low hum of conversation and organ music playing softly in the background. The room was simple, with rows of wooden pews leading up to the front where I could see Willie’s casket. A large, framed photo of Willie in his younger days sat on a stand beside the casket, along with a massive wreath of roses and lilies.

Keenan was up front, the only actual family Willie had left. Next to him sat Chef and a couple of the guys from the Blue Ridge, which had closed for the morning so everyone could go to the service. Hanna and Kat sat on the next pew over. They had saved me a seat.

“Welcome, everyone. We are gathered here today with heavy hearts to honor and celebrate the remarkable life of Willie Johnson,” the preacher said as the service began. “Willie was a kind and generous friend who touched many lives through his warm spirit and compassion. He was always willing to lend a hand or offer words of comfort to those in need.”

“Willie had a talent for bringing people together. He had a gift for finding common ground and helping others see the humanity in one another. Willie built bridges where others saw divides.”

“Most of all, we will miss the music he brought into all of our lives. Willie had a true gift that he generously shared with all of us. His music brought us joy, comforted us in times of sorrow, and lifted our spirits in celebration.”

“We can take comfort that Willie hasn’t left us forever, but is waiting for us in the kingdom of heaven, ready to play us one more song when we join him. As it says in John, chapter fourteen, verses one through three, ‘Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also.’”

“The family has asked Willie’s friend and protégé Charlie Nelson to come up and say a few words. Charlie,” he said, looking directly at me.

I stood up on legs that suddenly felt shaky and made my way to the front of the church. I’d been in front of crowds so many times by this point, but I don’t think I’d ever felt as nervous as I did right then. When I started talking, my throat was tight.

“Hi everyone,” I started, and then cleared my throat to try to steady my voice a little. “I’m, uhh, Charlie. Most of you know me and know that Willie and I spent a lot of time together. I’m ... I’m not sure what to say about him. I spent all week trying to figure out what I was going to say, but ... how do you talk about someone who gave you everything and asked for nothing in return?”

I rubbed my sweaty palms against my pant legs.

“One of the last times I saw him, just before the end, he told me he didn’t want everyone being sad when he was gone. He wanted us to celebrate him. To remember the things we loved about him, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

I paused, looking out across the people gathered in the room.

“Willie loved music. He loved playing it, he loved listening to it, and he loved talking to people about it. The first time I met him, up at the Blue Ridge, he heard I played guitar. He made me play him something. This was within, like, five minutes of meeting him. I was nervous, since I’d gone up to ask Chef about a job, but Willie made me feel welcome, like I belonged there.”

“I know most of you don’t know him like that. You listened to him play, or sat out on the porch talking to him, or just waved as you saw him around town, but I think it was actually the same for all of us. He had a passion and joy that rubbed off on everyone.”

“That’s what I think we should keep with us. We should remember how seeing Willie made us feel and try to be a little more like him. We can keep his memory alive by being a little nicer to each other, having a little more patience with each other, and trying to find the joys in life. At least, that’s how I’m going to try to honor him. I think if we were all a little more like Willie, the world would be a better place. Uhh ... Thank you.”

When I got back to my seat, Hanna patted me on the leg, and Kat took my hand in hers, so I guess I said the right thing. Pastor Wilkerson got back behind the podium and gave a little sermon about heaven and remembering people, that actually went well with what I’d said, although it seemed like the kind of thing he might have said for most sermons.

After the service, we followed the hearse carrying the casket out to the cemetery and had one last little service by his grave; it was sad to see him lowered into the ground. I thought about what I’d said, though. He’d asked me not to be sad, and I hadn’t really listened. I needed to take my own advice and try to keep Willie’s memory alive a little better.

The end of a funeral is weird. There’s all this emotion, people feeling the loss of their family member or friend, and then it’s over and everyone just wanders off to their cars and drives back to their normal lives.

I just couldn’t do that. I waved Kat and Hanna off, telling them I’d meet them back at the car in a little bit, and hung back, close to where the workers were waiting to finish burying Willie properly. I didn’t think I was going to stay around for that, because I didn’t need that as my final image of him, but I also couldn’t make myself leave yet. I felt like walking back to my own life and worries was like closing that last door. It was so final.

I was still standing there when Keenan appeared beside me. I’d thought he’d already headed down to his truck, and he surprised me. For a moment, he didn’t say anything and we just stood there, looking at the hole in the ground with Willie’s headstone behind it.

“I never thought this day would come,” Keenan finally said quietly. “Even after the diagnosis, Willie just had this spark. The life in him that made it seem like he’d go on forever.”

I only nodded in response.

Keenan was silent for another minute and then he cleared his throat, “I, uh, I have something for you. I found it when I was cleaning out Willie’s house. I think he’d want you to have it.”

He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a few sheets of paper covered in handwritten music notes and lyrics.

“It’s a song,” he explained. “I think he was working on it for years. He never let me see it or even really talked about it, but I saw him working on it over the years. Scribbling away on those pages.”

I took the pages from him carefully, almost reverently. There were sections crossed out and rewritten, notes in the margins. Some of the lettering was old and faded, and the crease lines from where the pages had been folded and unfolded countless times were tearing slightly. It was clearly a work in progress. It didn’t even have a title.

“I don’t know much about music and would either leave this in a drawer or frame it and put it up on a wall. Knowing how he felt about you ... I think maybe he’d want you to have it. He wouldn’t want this to just become a memory. With all the time he spent working on it over the years, I think he’d want to see it finished, and I think he’d want you to be the one to do it.”