Russell:

The funeral service began in all its horrible glory, black-cloaked man of God spouting empty words of comfort, a low-toned unintelligible drone. I wondered where he got his information. He safely skirted mention of any holy books, from the Bible to the Koran to the Bhagavad-Gita.

Then they lowered the much-too-small-to-be-real caskets into the ground. It started when the dirt was tossed in, earthen clumps that thudded, dark and dismal. A moan, heart-wrenching and pitiful, began to circle overhead like a flock of carrion birds. One of the mothers collapsed to her knees, her face buried in her hands. Then beside her, another woman began to cry, chest heaving, sobbing without pause. In a few moments it spread like a California brush fire, started in the valley where the parents stood and then swept up the mountainside, where the VR audience hovered above us. It felt like the whole world burned with sorrow.

We were being consumed by death. It was something we had ignored too long, and now, like a fire-breathing dragon, it raised its ugly head in our midst; it dared us to pretend we were anything more than mortal.

The fire burned and we couldn’t put it out.

We were leaving. Numb. Broken.

I felt like someone had dragged me through a minefield of broken glass. Raw and bleeding, with a hundred invisible slivers that continued to cut.

Someone grabbed my sleeve. I ignored it at first, but they wouldn’t let go.

“Please.” A woman’s voice.

I looked behind me and saw Mrs. Norris. I couldn’t remember her first name. All I could see was a little girl’s face superimposed on top of hers. Madeline Norris, eight years old. Dead.

“Please, can’t you make an exception? Just this one time—” Her voice came out a ragged whisper as she pulled me closer. “Bring her back, bring my Madeline back. She was eight. That’s old enough, isn’t it? Resurrection would work on her, wouldn’t it? Have you ever tried—”

I folded my hand over hers. Wished I could change my answer.

“No, Mrs. Norris. I can’t. It doesn’t work on children.”

“But can’t you try? Just this time, try it, please.”

“I’m sorry. I wish…I wish there was something, but…” My voice trailed off, my words stumbled over one another, helpless and ineffectual.

“I just don’t understand.” She stopped walking, stood still as the crowd rushed over her, a flood of black coats and lowered eyes. She just faded away as the mourners struggled to get out of the cemetery as quickly as they could.

I wanted to comfort her. In my mind I could hear Dad explain it and up until today I think I had always believed him.

“Resurrection doesn’t work on anyone younger than twelve,” he told me one cold winter afternoon.

I had argued with him, tried to figure out what we were doing wrong.

“It isn’t what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s us. It’s the way we’re made.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“Children, they belong to God.” He shrugged. “We just can’t take what belongs to Him.”

At that time it seemed to make sense.

But today, as the crowd rolled over Mrs. Norris like a tidal wave, I wanted to ask God why He didn’t take better care of the things that belonged to Him.