Muckster

I'm taking a writing class and having fun re-enacting conversations from our childhood and thought i'd share one. If it's offensive to anyone, please feel free to delete it, or let me know. I think its hilarious and its as close to the real conversation as i could get. Enjoy.

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“Where is he?! Where is he?!” we six kids had our noses pressed to the window of the family station wagon looking for the old man who sat on the neighbor’s porch by the railroad tracks.

“He died last week,” Mom reported with a tone that suggested she wanted us to sit in our seats and talk quietly.

I jumped up with all the energy a four-year-old has stored for such an occasion and hopped over two bench seats to land my butt next to my mother who was driving the car.

“God died?!” I asked.

“No, God didn’t die. Grandpa Jagunich died.”

“God can’t die, right?” I didn’t know Grandpa Jagunich and wasn’t much concerned by his passing.

“That’s right. God can’t die.” Mom assured me.

On our way home from town, I had my nose pressed to the window again looking for the man on the porch.

“He’s not there,” Mom reminded me. “He died.”

At the dinner table that evening, I announced the news between spoonfuls of mashed potatoes. Eleven-year-old Anita had never heard such a thing and was intrigued. How did I know God died?

“Mom told us.”

“No, Elizabeth Christine, what I said is that God did NOT die.”

“Jesus died for our sins,” seven-year-old David piped up proudly.

Anita brought us back to the subject at hand. She wanted the full story from ME with no input from anyone else. Everyone listened because she sat in the middle on one side of this table of ten and wouldn’t please-pass-the-milk to anybody who didn’t.

“God lived at Doug’s house and God died.” I told my big sister, surprised that I’d gotten the news first.

“No, God lives in Heaven,” Dad reminded me from the head-end of the table.

“I know THAT. Heaven is at Doug’s house.”

“What does God look like?” Anita questioned, still on her mission to get to the bottom of this.

“You know. He sits on the porch and waves at us.”

Mom understood then. “That’s not God! That was Grandpa Jagunich!” She exclaimed with a laugh in her voice.

“No, it’s God. God made sure we were sitting nice in the car so a train wouldn’t hit us. And now God died. Probably a train hit him.” I went back to my mashed potatoes and creamed corn.