“I don’t see why I had to come along,” whined Charlotte.

“Cause you’re family, honey,” Carl answered gently.

“Well, I’ve got a million things to do and not one of them is here. Besides, it’s spooky,” Charlotte continued.

“Now Charlotte,” said Mary Bell, her mother, “that’s enough.”

The small party came to the main gate of the village cemetery, Fern Crest.  The gatekeeper, Ernst, approached the gate.

“Afternoon Carl, Mary Bell, girls,” he said.

“Afternoon Ernst.  We’re all ready. Here’s the bag,” Carl said solemnly.

“Don’t give it to me,” Ernst said. “Just go on back all of you to the plot. Oscar left everything ready this morning.”

Arriving at the Ritchie family plot, Carl saw the freshly-dug hole and broke into tears.

“Where’s the preacher?” asked Margaret, Charlotte’s younger sister.

“We don’t need one yet, sweetheart,” Carl answered, drying his eyes. "The good Lord will decide that. There will be another burial when He does.”

“Well, I hope the Lord will grant you many years yet, even if it’s on one leg and crutches,” Charlotte said.  She softly patted her father’s face.

“Thank you, honey,” Carl said. “You two girls and your mama here are all I really have. And we all need my pension. When I’m gone, it’s gone.”

“Now Carl,” Mary Bell said, “His eye is on the sparrow.”

“Yes it is, May,” Carl responded. “And it’s on us, too, right here and now. He’s helping us and blessing us.”

“Daddy what’s next?"  Margaret asked, impatiently.

“That’s all right, honey. Just hold your horses a bit. We’ll be out of here in five minutes. All we got to do is place this bag in the pit. Oscar’ll come along this evening to cover it up properly.”

“I guess we need to go ahead and order those two headstones,” Mary Bell Ritchie volunteered.

“Yes, we do,” Carl replied, “even though we don’t know the hour.”

“Sometimes I think one’s as good as the other for any of us,” Mary Bell said with resignation in her voice.

“Maybe that’s cause it’s not your leg here, May,” Carl said, feeling a little offended.

Carl’s left leg was embalmed and sealed in a special bag to help prevent decay.  One day in the future, the bag would be placed inside his coffin with the rest of him.  He suffered from diabetes and the doctors had amputated most of the leg a month ago.

He lowered the leg bag into the new pit using some cord he’d brought along. When he’d finished, he broke down again.

“The Lord giveth…,” Mary Bell murmured.

After a few minutes, Carl dried his eyes again.

“Let’s go, everybody.  There’s no need to stay here all afternoon.”

“Finally,” Charlotte said.  “Poor Daddy.”

END OF “POOR DADDY”