Whatever you're facing...
Heaven Can Begin Now

John had gone back to the station to call his mother. Back in the car he reported their conversation. "They went out to dinner," he said. "The restaurant wasn't far and you can never find a taxi when it snows, so they walked back to the seminary. They read for a while, Dad in his leather chair with the Braille Bible in his lap. Then Mother went to the kitchen to make cocoa. When she came back with it, she thought he'd fallen asleep .... "

Mrs. Coolidge had volunteered, John said, to stay overnight. We drove Norm to Fordham Station to catch a northbound train, then turned the car around and headed back to Manhattan. What can we possibly say to Mother? I agonized as we followed the snowplows back into the city, too stunned to speak much even to each other. Why, this coming weekend Dad was going to baptize Liz! The ritual meant nothing to John and me, but since Dad kept asking about it, we'd settled on her first birthday for the service.

It was 1:00 A.M. when we found a parking place on 116th Street and took the elevator up to the apartment in McGiffert Hall. Two students at the seminary had moved Dad from the library onto his bed - he was a light sleeper and he and Mother had separate bedrooms. The undertaker would arrive at 8:00 in the morning.

John and I had come, but as I feared could find nothing of comfort to say. The Sherrills had never been huggers or touchers; they expressed love with words. On that terrible night words would not come for any of us.

"You've got to get some sleep, Mother," John said at last. 'There'll be a lot to do tomorrow."

Mother came to the door of the guest bedroom with a nightgown for me. For a long while I lay awake, wondering why such verbal people as the three of us should find that words deserted us when they were needed most.