Pockets

Pockets

Noel Laflin

3-2-19

Seated between two old friends in a crowded pew waiting for the service to begin this morning, I reached inside my old suit left coat pocket rummaging around for my reading glasses. I wanted to better see the memorial service bulletin that the kind usher had given me when I entered the church.

Caught in the glasses were pristine looking business cards inscribed with an address that I had not been to in a dozen years or more.

I nudged my old former co-workers seated to either side of me and showed them the cards. We three used to work together, along with scores of others gathered at the service today. Now, we were all scattered like the wind, but drawn together again to pay respects to the man we had all once fondly called boss – the man that had provided me those cards by which to proudly represent his company so long ago.

Wondering what the right inside coat pocket might contain, I reached in and felt a paper folded twice over.

It was a memorial service bulletin, from seven years ago, for the father of the man for whom we had all gathered today.