In “Too Old To Play“, young Danny Tompkins dealt with the after-funeral party at his house. Then years later, as an adult, he remembered and re-thought what was going on. No doubt this was a difficult memory for me, and the short story echoes much of what I felt at the time.

In the church we attended, victory over death wasn’t something that was preached. Death was final, and a person didn’t actually go to heaven or hell upon death, but to that in-between place, waiting on the “bus” to one place or the other, based upon the ticket vouchers being sent along by those left behind. Death was final. There was no assurance of heaven, no good news.

So a funeral was not a celebration of a person’s life, but rather a mourning of the death. First came the wake. It was different back in the 1960s. We spent two nights at the funeral home, with people viewing the casket, then passing by to express condolences. My grandparents, mom’s mom and step-dad, were at one end of the row, then us children, then Dad. Or maybe he was between some of us teens. Two night of a solid stream of “I’m so sorry for you.” Back then people didn’t bring pictures and mementos of the person’s life. We didn’t celebrate a passing; we mourned a death. We had no hope.

Today it’s different. If I was a teenager in 2012 with a mom who died a slow and painful death, when the end came we would celebrate her passing with pictures and doilies she’d crocheted and other things to remind us of her. We would say things about her being free of her suffering, and looking down from us in heaven.

But back in 1965 we had no hope. The wake reinforced that, and the gathering after the funeral gave the adults a couple of hours release, delaying the eventual grieving. Did it help? Was Dad able to recover more quickly because those friends, neighbors, and relatives came to talk, drink, smoke, and laugh with him? I suppose he did.

So “Too Old To Play” tells an honest memory of that day, as much as I remember of it. The adult memories are mostly fictional, but not completely. Again, I wrote it to tell a story, but if some teen, or even an adult, is helped through their grieving by it, then it will be a good thing.