I started writing a novel a few years ago.  Sometimes you have to put your writing away for a while and brood over it.  It’s in my head – I just haven’t had the time to sit down and finish it.   I just opened it again and here are a few of the first few paragraphs:

It was raining of course. It always rained when there was a funeral. At least it did in provincial little town of Atkin’s Corners. God seems to know that farm people don’t show much emotion in public, so it was up to Him to provide the tears when people passed from this world. Today was one of those days.

A parade of broken down cars and rickety old pick-up trucks wound slowly down the old country road led by a long black hearse. It was the same dilapidated limousine that carried folks to their final destination for more than 50 years. It was a miracle that rusted monster could still make it the ten miles from town.

The small cemetery was home to generations dating back to the 1800’s. The place didn’t get a lot of use anymore since most Atkin’s Corners high school graduates couldn’t wait to move to the big city the minute they received a diploma. Those who remained were getting cremated instead of buried now. The world was changing in so many ways. Cremation never used to seem the right thing to do. People always felt it necessary to say goodbye to a empty shell, even though the spirit of that body was no longer there.

The grave waited to receive the casket. The pall bearers gently retrieved it from its temporary home in the hearse and set it atop the waiting bier. There were no more than a dozen mourners; all full of grief but devoid of tears. The rain made up for them. The tracks of the tire treads quickly filled with water to prove that fact.

Reverend Albright tried to comfort with words from the Good Book but nothing seemed to placate this stoic crowd.  Funerals were a fact of life, just like milking the cows and paying your taxes. Only funerals were kind of like social events too. They gave folks a chance to talk about their loved ones in ways they rarely did. Somehow the deceased had attained instant success just because they were dead.

Most folks knew this lady – a fragile woman of 76 – who spent the majority of her years covering the secrets of her youth.  The trouble she wandered into in every stage of her life, brought her nothing but shame and humiliation.  Her body now gave way to death, but the secrets would live on.