Story out of New York:
After a long battle with cancer, Val-Jean McDonald, mother of eight
sons, with more than 20 grandchildren, almost as many
great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren, died on Dec. 18
at the age of 81.
Her funeral, 11 days later, attracted scores of mourners to Union Baptist Church
in Harlem: her sons, from Manhattan, New Jersey, Georgia, Texas and
Australia; other relatives and friends; and people who had never met her
but knew her children.
They all filed past the open coffin, seeing familiar remnants of Ms.
McDonald’s life: a favorite pink blouse and white suit, and her finest
jewelry.
“Why did they cut off all her hair?” a son, Errol McDonald, 57,
remembers thinking. “Maybe it’s the cancer.” He bent and kissed her.
But sometimes children see what adults cannot. Adults rationalize. Children call it like it is.
“My 10-year-old son said, ‘Daddy, that’s not Grandma,’” recalled Mr.
McDonald, a school maintenance worker in Manhattan. “I said, ‘Yes,
that’s what happens,’” he told the boy, explaining that people can look
different in death.
Six days passed. Then, a manager from McCall’s Bronxwood Funeral Home
in the Bronx, which had handled the arrangements, called another of Ms.
McDonald’s sons, the Rev. Richard McDonald, with shattering news, he
said.
“She says, ‘That body was not your mother,’” Richard McDonald said in an interview. "Your mother is still here."
Cont.
Story from - New York Times
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