One early morning in May, I was rushing to get ready for work. The phone rings.

 "Hi, Jeanne," says my best friend Arlene

 Something's wrong, I can tell by her voice.

 "You have bad news, don't you," I say.

 "Yep...anytime it's this early..."

 There was a heavy silence for a few moments.

 "...I remember it was 30 years ago that I called you like this when Daddy died."

 "Arlene...who is it?" I say, preparing myself to hear Vera's or even Bill's name.

 "Elaine."

 "ELAINE?" I repeat stupidly.

 Suddenly nothing feels real. Elaine has had a bad case of pneumonia for weeks but was finally feeling better, Arlene tells me. Yesterday, after taking Danny to school, she was found in her car which was still sitting in front of the garage. I hardly know how to respond. Neither does Arlene, I guess. After giving me the details of the viewing and the funeral, she says, "Well...it sounds crazy to say, but have a good day."

 "Yeah, you too, Arlene."

 In a daze I call Benny then get myself into the car and drive to work. On the way, the image of Elaine comes so vividly to mind.

 "Elaine...where was I yesterday when you left this world? Was the sun shining? Was it cozy in the car? Were you so tired that you just decided to sit and soak in the warmth for a little while? And then ...you just slipped away? Was Raymond there to meet you?"

 Raymond, Arlene and Elaine's dad, was my eighth grade Sunday School Teacher. We all went to a little Friends Church south of Grange Corner, Indiana. Population, eight. Raymond was a farmer. He and Vera with their daughters Arlene and Elaine, lived in an old, well-kept two story white house with green shutters just east of Grange Corner. It was the house Vera had grown up in. The old Grange Corner schoolhouse sat just down the road to the West. That's where Arlene and Elaine went to school. Vera too, probably. Raymond had a ruddy complexion and the bluest eyes. They were always twinkling with fun and mischief. One night, as we all sat around the supper table, he put some old twenties-vintage song about a stripper on the record player. Then he just sat and watched me. And grinned. Vera, Arlene, and Elaine giggled. In the song you'd hear a 'zing' every once in a while like some article of clothing flying through the air, and then this voice would say, "Take it off! Take it off!" I tried my level best not to blush and failed miserably. The song ended with the line, "But she was a lady, and she always stopped just in time."

 Raymond was the one who challenged us with the statement, "If God gives you seven days, can't you give Him back one hour?" That statement was to change my life, but that's another story...

 At work I leave my desk and meander to the Union for a cup of coffee. Even though Elaine has long since grown to womanhood, married, become a mother, earned a master's degree, taught elementary school children for many years, and raised a son on her own after her husband died, in my mind she was forever our kid sister. The happy eleven-year-old who tagged along with Arlene and me at the county fair, was active in 4-H, and had her own friendships and rivalries in the little community around Grange Corner. I spent every New Year's Eve with Arlene and Elaine when I was a teenager. It was fun. Raymond and Vera would take us all out to eat Italian at Clinton, and drive us around to see the Christmas lights. As the years went by, our circle of five shrank by one, but we still knew how to get together and have fun. I remember the afternoon all three of those limber-limbed, nimble-footed Kesner women showed me how to 'Thread a Broom.' How could I forget? I have Polaroid pictures!

 I leave the Union and just walk around campus. It's like what has happened has gotten my attention totally in the present. I feel the sidewalk under my feet, see the blue sky, hear the birds singing, look at the green grass, the trees, feel the air go in and out my lungs. For a brief time there is nothing else going on. There is nothing else but now...

 Wolf Creek is a little country church outside of Wallace that you wouldn't know was there if you passed it. A little dirt lane off highway 341 leads back to it. Like all idyllic little country churches, it is located on a hill in a clearing and is painted white. My great grandparents are buried in its cemetery. All my life, the same people have gone there. When we were teenagers, Reverend Servies, the minister, baptized Arlene, Elaine, and I in a near-by swimming hole known as "Tommy's Rock." My favorite place to play when I was a child. Arlene and Elaine both got married at Wolf Creek. After each ceremony, the ushers would show us out row by row...out the front door, down the steps, to form a circle of people standing around the front of the church, waiting to throw rice at the newly weds. Elaine had beaten both Arlene and me to the altar, much to our chagrin. We were almost thirty, and just sure on that day, that we were going to end up old maids. Joy, regret, a sense that things would never be the same for our little circle, yet hope for life's Promise, these were the feelings that went through our minds on her wedding day.

 Today the funeral is at Wolf Creek. The ushers show us out row by row...out the front door, down the steps, the same circle of people, thinned out some, a little older, standing around the front of the church. Today we wait to walk behind a hearse.

 As we fall in behind, I reflect, "You've done it again, haven't you, Elaine?"

 After the graveside memorial service, family and friends drift away to visit until Danny's the only one left under the tent. He lingers in front of the casket. His dark suit, his earnest young face, clear innocent gaze depict the bloom of new-found adulthood. At seventeen, he's the same age as Arlene thirty years ago, when we stood here for Raymond. At this moment he brings to mind a chick, hovering close to its mother. One by one his friends gather round him.

Vera comes toward me shaking her head. "I'm like Danny. This hasn't hit me yet. I'll think of a million things I want to tell her..."