Goodbye, John T.

My heart sank as I read the morning headline in my local paper. John T., our county coroner and manager of the classiest funeral parlor in town was killed in a car crash last night while enroute to the scene of another fatal accident. John was 48.

John was good at his job. He was the person who hugged me and reassured me that my friend Elizabeth never knew what happened when she died in an apartment fire a few years ago. He buried this revered schoolteacher without charging a dime. She had no family and there was no way to get to her meager savings as she had left no one else able to access her bank account. He also never charged to bury a child, saying that he just could not add that burden to anyone dealing with the loss of a little one.

I got to know John from singing for funerals that he directed. Behind the scenes, he had the macabre sense of humor that many in the business of death cultivate in order to stay sane. Many's the time that sense of humor and one of John's hugs helped me get through singing for the funeral of a friend or acquaintance.

I have to wonder if ol' John is up in Heaven right this minute sharing a joke with God and watching, with interest, the preparations being made for his own funeral.

As for me, I just can't imagine death without him.