I talk to the children at church from time to time and for a long time I have been wanting to do a talk on death. There are two reasons why I have not done it. The first is because Talk is very long it would take almost twice the time allotted to me. I thought about doing in two parts but I was afraid I would lose many of they children by spreading it out over two weeks. The second is I am not to sure how proper it would be to talk about death in the middle of a church service. So I decided to do it this way. That way those that are interested can read my story and those that are not interested don’t have to.

My first experience with death happened when I was 11 year old. We were all watching TV. My Dad was

reading the paper. He turned to me and said “Junior do you Christine?” (he always called me Junior because I was named after him) I said “yes I have played with her and last year she was in my class.” He showed me the page he had been reading and showed me her picture. I spread the paper on the floor and read the article. I still remember the article even though it has been almost 50 years. The article said the Christine was returning home from

vacation with her family. They were going through Arizona. A gust of wind caught their trailer and spun them around. When they spun around Christine flew out the window and was dead when she hit the highway. I felt bad because I liked her. My first thought was for my friend Barbara. Barbara and Christine were best friend and I was

worried how she would take it. I never did find out.

My second experience with death was when I was 15. We were told my Grandfather was dying and he was put in a rest home. I begged my Dad to take me to see him but my Dad refused he said I was too young. What really made me mad is all four of my older sisters had their own transportation and could visit him if the wanted to. I think all four of them did visit him. One morning when we got up my Mom told us that our Grandfather had died during the night. A few days later they had an open casket service for him, What open casket service is is that they leave the casket open during the service so people can see the body one last time. After the service all of us kids had to walk passed the casket. When Gary and I saw him lying there is scared us so bad we both started crying. It was quite a while before we got control of ourselves again. I still don’t like open casket services. When I have to go to one I do my best to avoid looking at the body.