The Rest of This Story . . .

At the grave site my friends and I stood looking at the patch of grass. What do you do when raising the dead? How does that look and sound? I hashed this over with Marvin and Bonnie and we decided to do the calling of Lazurus, like Jesus did. I called out, "Jeff come out of the ground!" Immediately, I thought, If he opens up the grave and comes out, I'm going to have a heart attack. My friends and I assessed the lack of response from Jeff. Maybe we had to show more committment to raising Jeff so I called out again, "Jeff, in the name of Jesus, come back to life!" After several more efforts of the same, my friends and I decided we needed to follow God's instructions -- the part in the Bible about praising God before asking Him for favors -- basically that's it. So, I proposed we dance and praise God. There we were, Easter Sunday, my two little boys climbing all over the gravestones and burial plots, me, Marvin, and Bonnie dancing on Jeff's grave, praising the Lord . . . outloud!

And, yes, it occurred to me how bizarre the scene appeared but, I could not help myself. It was the perfect time, if ever, to respond in drastic measures. Jeff was dead. I couldn't face it. And, how in Heaven's name would I ever cope with all of this?

One Easter Sunday in 1988

It was a stark and cool day, and taking my boys was probably stupid but with two friends who were from the church I attended, we went to Jeff's burial site.  The pastor had been riding the congregation about doing things in the Bible, like, heal the sick, make the blind to see. He said, "Step out in faith" Well, the pastor never said anything about raising the dead even though it was right there in the Bible next to the other directions. 


So, I accepted the pastor's challenge -- more like a directive - and went to the cemetary to raise Jeff from the dead. . .