My father died on the Monday before Easter. My mother had died on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It was strange, I thought to myself, how these things always seem to happen around the holidays. It's almost as if someone were trying to tell us something; something about life and death and what these things really mean. But nothing's really spelled out, and in the end we just have to deal with it and make sense of it. We have to move on.

My father was 90. He lived a long life and he got to see his grandchildren and a great grandson. People told me that was something; that was something not everyone gets to see. 'I hope I live to see 90', they would say to me. He did take care of himself. He didn't smoke, he didn't drink, he walked a mile or more everyday, even up to the end. Rain or shine he would walk. Maybe this was part of his secret. But in the end it was old age that caught with him. He died in his sleep from cardiovascular thrombosis. I remember thinking to myself, that's the way to go, in your sleep. I couldn't be sure, but I hoped that it had been painless.

He had also been a man of faith. He went to church every Sunday; rain or snow or sickness, he never missed a Sunday. He read the bible every day. Sometimes he would try and read the bible to me. He taught Sunday school for years. He volunteered for Meals on Wheels until he couldn't drive anymore. These things have to count for something, I thought to myself. I told myself, he's with God now. He's in heaven. That's what I told myself.

Our family is scattered all over the country now and since it was so close to Easter, we planned the funeral for the week after. My brother Ed had to fly in from California, my sister Jane had to drive up from Florida. Cousin Tom said he would fly down from New York. The grandkids he had gotten to see were either in school or working or tied down with other things. All of his brothers in law and sisters in law, his own brother, had already passed. They were already gone. As for the cousins, his nieces and nephews: Tina had her baby, Paul was afraid of flying and lived too far away to drive. Mary was on vacation; in Disneyworld, I think, with a friend. Lou was in rehab. Kay was dealing with her divorce, and the kids, and the order of protection against the guy she had married. That's the way things are today. What can you do about that? But it bothered me that there were only going to be four of us there. It didn't seem right, you know? It didn't seem fair.

While I waited for my brother and sister and cousin Tom, I was left to settle his affairs. Close his bank accounts, clean out the apartment, file the death certificate, call the life insurance company. I got to walk around his place, go through his things. I got to talk about him over the phone. It gave me a funny feeling. It made me think.

For some reason he kept an old alarm clock from years back, on his bureau. I remember it from our old house. I thought to myself, how many times had that old clock woken him up in the morning, so he could go to work, all those years and years? Did he ever once think, I wondered, that one morning he would get up and look at that clock, and it would be the last time he would see it tell him it was six o'clock? Would he think all those years of work were worth it?

While I was walking around, going from room to room, packing up his things, it seemed like he was still there, watching me somehow, packing up his things. What would he say? I thought to myself. What would he tell me, about all this? In the drawers of his bedroom bureau I found old photograph albums, and I looked through them. All those pictures. Pictures of mom and him on their wedding day. Ed and me and Jane playing in the snow when we were kids. Standing in front of the Christmas tree. Birthday pictures. Confirmation pictures. Graduation pictures. Pictures of the grandkids.

When I got to the end, I closed the book and looked around the room. The kids and the grandkids had moved on. It was so still and quiet. I got up and looked out of the window. There was a delivery truck going past. All kinds of cars going by, one after the other. Someone walking past carrying their groceries, someone else walking with their kids back from a bus stop. A plane overhead, coming in for a landing. There were still no leaves yet on the trees, but you could tell they were coming. Across the street there was a forsythia bush blooming. Some croccuses. The sun was coming out.

Well, I told myself, you can't expect the world to stand still for my dad. For anybody.

Jane was the first to arrive. She drove up two days before the funeral. When I opened the door for her, she looked as if she had been crying. So I hugged her, I took her suitcase, and we went into the house.

"I just can't stop thinking about the last time I saw him," she said, as she sat on the couch. "I wish I could have seen him one more time. I wish I could have told him I loved him one more time."

"Yeah, well," I said, "It happened so fast. What can you do. I went to go see him a week before and he seemed fine. And then someone from the building called and said he had passed, overnight. The housekeeping service found him."

"Oh my God!" Jane said. "They just found him like that?"

"I think they said they found him in bed. He passed in his sleep."

She shook her head. "I just don't like the thought of some housekeeper finding him like that."

"Well what can you do. It's just the way it happened."

She looked out of the window. "I just wish I had been there. I just wish one of us could have been with him. That he wasn't alone."

"Jane," I said, as gently as I could, "You can't arrange these things."

She looked at me. "Well, I don't want to go like that."

Ed flew in the next day. I picked him up at the airport. There he was, my big brother, in his jacket, with a California tan. When he saw me, he kind of stopped in his tracks for a moment, like he was thinking of what to say. Ed didn't come east much. He claimed he was always busy with work. I hadn't seen him in two years, at least. I didn't know what to say either, but I felt like he needed to be there.

"So how are you holding up?" He asked me. He shifted his suitcase from one hand to the other. He stuck out a hand and I shook it.

"O.K.," I said.

Then he turned and started walking. Ed had moved out to California twenty five years ago, to work in Silicon Valley. Dad hadn't wanted him to go. They had quarreled about it, I remember. I know dad had flown there once and came back talking about how Ed was too wrapped up in making money. How he didn't go to church anymore. He talked about how he had failed as a father. I don't think he went out there again, after that. And like I said, Ed didn't come east much.

We walked for a ways and then he said: "So, did you put aside those things I had asked you about? Those things I wanted?"

"Yes, Ed." Ed had wanted dad's sailboat pictures. They used to go sailing together when he was a kid. And he wanted the model airplane dad had built for him. The woodcarving of the mountain climber.

"Alright," Ed said.

"Are you O.K.?" I asked him.

"Sure, sure. It wasn't like it was that much of a shock. I mean, he was 90. I knew he wasn't going to last forever."

"Yeah," I said, "He lived a long life."

Ed nodded.

We walked a ways more. "Maybe you should have come out, last Christmas, when I invited you," I said.

He shrugged. "What can you do. There was no way of knowing it was going to be the last time, you know. And I was busy."

We walked a ways more. We passed one of those airport bars. "Hey," he said, "I could use a drink."

Jane picked up Tom the same day. They were waiting for us at the house when we got back. Tom got up quickly from the couch when we came in.

"Sorry to hear," he said, shaking my hand.

"Thanks for coming," I said.

"Of course," he said. "Well, he's at peace now."

"Yes," I said. "He's at peace. He's not suffering anymore."

The day of the funeral was a grey day. It looked like it was going to rain any minute. I remember thinking: it's only fitting. We rode together to the funeral parlor in my car. None of us said much. Then Ed asked me about his things again. I told him I had the things we talked about over the phone at my house. He said I should ship them out to him in California after the funeral. Jane looked at him. Then she shook her head and looked out of the window.

Tom cleared his throat and said: " I remember that boat he built. Remember that boat?"

"He loved that boat," I said. "I remember him working on it, in our basement. He took me out on a couple of rides on it, I remember. But I think Ed was the one who went out with him the most."

"Yeah," Ed said. "That boat. What ever happened to that boat?"

I shrugged. "You know," I said, "I really don't remember. I think he might have sold it to somebody."

"I wonder who," Ed said, looking at me.

"Is that all we are going to do, talk about his things, and what happened to them?" Jane said.

After that, we were quiet again as we rode along.

Then Tom said: "He was real religious, I remember. He went to church every Sunday. I remember him arguing with my father about the saints and Mary all the time."

Ed sighed. "Those stupid arguments," he said.

"He went to church right up until the end," I said. "I used to take him every other Sunday."

"Well that's good," Tom said.

It was a funny feeling walking into that room and seeing him lying up there in that coffin. I mean, you spend a whole life with your father, watching him go to work, listening to him saying grace in the kitchen, driving up to church with him and sailing with him, looking at the moon through his telescope and listening to him telling you that some day you might be able to get there. And then you see him like that, laying there like he's made of wax, with his hands folded and his eyes closed, in that old suit.

Jane put her hand over her mouth and leaned over to me, with her eyes all red and glistening. "It doesn't even look like him!" she gasped.

Ed put his hands in his pockets, fidgeting with his keys, looking around like he was looking for another door, or something. "Yeah, well, they do the best they can, Jane," he said.

"But it doesn't even look like him," she said, "It doesn't look a thing like him."

"I'm sure they did the best they could," I said to her, as gently as I could.

"It's got something to do with the muscles," Ed said, "Something happens to the muscles when you die."

Jane glared at him. "Just stop, will you?" she hissed at him.

"Just stop what?" Ed said, looking back at her.

Tom walked over to the flowers, and looked at the cards. To change the subject, he said: "These over here are from Paul. Those are from Kay."

"Paul's the one who doesn't fly, right?" Ed asked him. Tom nodded. "And Kay's the one going through the divorce?"

Tom nodded.

"Well, what can you do," Ed said, sitting down. "That's the way things are today. And he's only being laid out one night, right?"

"Yes," I said. "I was surprised at how much these things cost. But we wanted to do a real burial, right Jane?"

"Oh yes," she said. "I don't like the idea of those cremations."

Ed turned and looked up at her. "Why not?" he asked her.

"It just seems funny," she said.

"Well," he said, "I'm going to be cremated when I go."

"I'm not getting cremated," Jane said firmly. "I'm going to buy a plot next to mom and dad. I want to be buried with them."

Ed rolled his eyes.

"What?" she asked, turning to him with a scowl.

"I just don't see what difference it makes. It doesn't make sense to me."

"You have an odd way of looking at things," Jane told him, turning away. "You always have."

Ed closed his eyes. He shook his head. We all sat there for a few minutes, looking up at dad there in the casket, looking at the flowers.

"I can't believe we're the only ones here," Jane said. "It seems like there should be more people here."

I sighed. "Like Ed says, that's the way things are today," I said.

"People don't have the same respect that people in mom and dad's time did," Jane said flatly. "In those days, they made sure they went to funerals."

"In those days, people lived within fifty miles of each other," Ed said. "It's different now. People live all over the place now."

Jane looked at him. "And they do that because they just don't care about each other anymore like they used to," she said.

Ed stood up. " I need a drink of water," he said.

The burial went like all burials go. The pastor came and we had a little service. We sang 'Amazing Grace.' The pastor talked about the resurrection, the life to come. I stood up there and said a few things about my dad; how he was deacon of the church for a time, how he did the Meals on Wheels for years, how he was a devoted husband and a good father. We went out to the spot we had picked out when mom died, under this maple tree. Without any leaves, it looked dead. But there were some croccus blooming around it. The pastor said his piece; you know, 'ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' Then they lowered him down and started shoveling dirt on him.

I looked around and thought to myself: 'This is the last place that dad came to in this world. This is it. These stones and these plaques, this tree, that field. This is it. This is where we leave all that is left of him.'

After the burial, we went back to my place for some coffee. We were all sitting around the kitchen table. Ed was leaning back in his chair, one hand on his coffee cup, one hand of fingers nervously drumming on the table, looking out of the window instead of at us. Jane sat leaning forward, head bowed, her arms folded. She looked tired. Tom was stirring his coffee. I was resting my head in my hand. I was tired too. Funerals do that to you.

I cleared my throat. "Well, at least it's a nice place, where we left him."

"Yeah, it's a nice place," Ed said. "As nice a place as a place like that can be."

Jane frowned. "What do you mean, 'a place like that'? What's that supposed to mean?"

Ed shrugged. "It's a cemetery, Jane. It's full of dead people. It's not like they can enjoy it."

Jane shook her head. "I just can't think of my parents as dead."

Tom nodded. "I know what you mean."

I said to Ed: "You mean, you don't believe in the life everlasting?"

He fidgeted in his seat, grasping his cup of coffee, without looking at any of us. He grimaced. "I don't know. Does anybody really know? Can anybody say for sure that some part of you is still alive, after your body dies, and that it's conscious of other people, lying in that field?"

"So you don't believe you will ever see your parents again?" Jane asked him, looking straight into his face.

He stared in front of him, not looking at anyone in particular. "I'm just saying I don't know. I wouldn't bet on it."

"Well, I have to think that I will see them again," Jane said firmly. "Otherwise, what was the sense of living this life, and having them in your life, and knowing that they loved you and that you loved them?" Tears glistened in her eyes. "I can't imagine not ever seeing them again. I can't."

Tom gently put his hand on top of hers. "I feel the same way, Jane. I believe in the afterlife."

Jane wiped her face. "I have to. Don't you?"

"It's hard to imagine that you just cease to exist one day," Tom said. "That it all just comes to an end, our family and all the people we love. If it all just comes to an end, then life here doesn't make sense."

I leaned towards them, my heart beating faster, my thoughts welling up inside me. "I read in the Bible the other day this thing that Jesus told his disciples," I said. "He said: 'In my Father's house there are many rooms. I am going to prepare a place for you. Would I tell you that if it weren't true?'"

"You see?" Tom reiterated. And Jane nodded in agreement.

But Ed shuffled his feet under the table and shook his head. He picked up a spoon and stirred his coffee with it. "Did you ever think of what it might be like to live forever?" he said, "To be with the same people, forever? To just go on and on? I mean, wouldn't you get tired of it?"

Jane frowned at him. "Tired of your family? How could you get tired of the people who love you, the people you love?"

"Maybe you'd get tired of love," Ed said. "I don't know if I wouldn't get tired of sitting with the same people forever, doing and saying the same things. I can't imagine that."

"Maybe it's different than it is here," Tom said.

"How would it be different?" Ed asked him.

"Maybe it's not like a place, but more like a feeling. Maybe it's not like talking and walking and things like that. It's more like listening to music, or something like that."

"Yes," I agreed.

But Jane shrugged. "I would miss the trees, the clouds, the sunset, the sea. I don't know if I would like to be there without those things."

"When I think of the afterlife," I said, "I think of being with God. I think God and being with God will be the main thing. Mom and dad will be there too."

Ed made a face. "You can believe anything you want. You can imagine all kinds of things. But that doesn't mean that's how it's going to be. People used to believe the Earth was flat. They believed the sun went around the Earth. They believed there was a man in the moon, that the moon was a god. But when we went up there, we found out it was just a rock, the whole time. Things are what they are, it doesn't matter what you believe. People believed God created the world in six days. Now we know it evolved over billions of years. We have the fossils to prove it. The carbon dating."

"But that doesn't prove there is no God," Tom told him.

"It doesn't prove anything one way or the other," Ed said.

"Well I don't know if I can come to terms with a life that just ends, like that," I said. "That everything just goes dark."

"Look," Ed said, waving his arms as if to say he was making a final, sweeping statement, "I'm just saying whatever you believe or want to believe has nothing to do with it. Things are what they are. And nobody really knows what it's like until they get there. Just like when they sailed around the world. And in the end, despite what anyone believes, it all might just turn out to be nothing. That it really does just end."

Jane stared at him. "That's a sad way of looking at things."

"You have to make the most of life while you live it," Ed said, firmly. "That's what I believe. You have to make the best of it while it lasts."

"Did you make the most of it?" she asked him, a dubious look on her face.

"I gave it my best shot," he said.

"It doesn't sound like you made the most of it," she said.

"Can anyone say they made the most of life?" I asked. "I mean, that's why we believe Jesus died for us, right?"

Ed flashed me a sarcastic smile. "But what if there is no Jesus?" He asked. "Just because you believe it doesn't mean that's the way it is. That's my point. The Muslims believe what they believe. The Jews believe in what they believe. And the Buddhists, the Hindus. Whose to say who's right and who's wrong? And maybe they're all wrong, and there really is nothing after this life."

"I don't know about any of that," Jane said, folding her arms. "Mom and dad always took us to church and so I believe in Jesus. If there is a God, then it's up to him to sort it all out."

Ed laughed. "You see? You said, 'if,' Jane."

"Whatever," Jane said.

Tom was looking out of the window. "I like to think of life as like climbing a mountain. Always trying to get to a better place."

"Maybe there is no better place," Ed said.

I finished my coffee and got up and put the empty cup in the sink. "I guess we could go on like this forever, arguing about what comes after we die," I said. "In the end, we just won't know until we get there."

Tom leaned back and looked at me, folding his hands behind his head. "The great unknown. People are always afraid of the unknown. That's why they take comfort in stories like the Resurrection."

Ed got up and put his cup in the sink. "Some people are afraid of the familiar," he said.

Jane stared at him again, her arms folded, leaning back in her chair. "Is that why you moved to California?" she asked him.

"I like to think of it as striking out on my own, and doing things my way," he said.

She snickered. "Is that what you are going to do in the afterlife? Strike out on your own?"

"More like strike out," he said, putting on his jacket. "Strike out and leave the field to the next team."

After they left, I stood at the darkened window, looking out into the night. I couldn't see a thing out there. It was like a door into the dark.

"That's what death looks like from this side," I said to myself. "The door into the dark."