“HE’S DEAD. HE WON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.”
“Twenty-four hundred dollars to haul a dead man out to Maxwell?” Gloria asked, looking directly at me. “Are you seriously going to waste that kind of money?”
We were sitting around a funeral director’s arrangement table on a Tuesday morning. The coffee had gone cold, the paperwork was spread between us, and the young director was trying very hard not to get caught in the middle of a family argument.
My father, Elmer Ahlquist, had been dead for three days.
He was eighty-one years old when his heart finally gave out in his favorite recliner. The television was still playing, his crossword puzzle rested on his knee, and his reading glasses were sitting on the end table beside him.
He had lived a quiet life, but he had one request he repeated for nearly fifty years.
When his time came, he wanted to be buried at Fort McPherson National Cemetery, out near Maxwell, Nebraska.
Not in the town cemetery.
Not beside the water tower.
At Fort McPherson, where some of the men he served with were already buried.
The funeral director adjusted his glasses.
“It includes the hearse, mileage, and an employee accompanying the family for the day,” he explained. “It’s approximately 140 miles each way. I’ve already reduced the transportation charge as much as possible.”
Gloria, my father’s wife of twenty-six years, folded her hands over her purse.
“He’s dead, Kurt. He won’t know the difference.”
I stared at her.
For a moment, I honestly thought I had misunderstood.
“Dad wanted to be there,” I answered. “He talked about it his entire life.”
Gloria reached into her purse and removed a folded piece of paper.
“I’ve already spoken with the city cemetery. There’s a plot available on the east side. Nine hundred dollars, including the opening and closing. I paid the deposit yesterday.”
I knew exactly which section she meant.
It was a flat stretch of land near the water tower, with no trees, no shade, and nothing separating the graves from the open bean fields beyond the fence.
There was nothing wrong with that cemetery.
But it wasn’t where my father belonged.
My name is Kurt Ahlquist. I’m fifty-two years old, and I operate a motor grader for the county. Most days, I spend hours repairing gravel roads, working slowly against weather, traffic, and time.
My father taught me that patience mattered.
He also taught me that a promise was something you kept, even when keeping it became inconvenient.
Dad served in Vietnam after being drafted in 1967. He arrived overseas in 1968 and returned home the following year.
He rarely discussed what happened there.
But he talked about his fellow soldiers.
Every morning at 6:30, he visited the same little coffee shop downtown. He sat at a round table near the window with four or five other veterans.
Roy Feltz was one of them. He had been on the same flight home as Dad.
Those men had spent decades looking after one another.
Whenever somebody mentioned funerals or retirement, Dad would tap the table with his index finger.
“When I go, you boys put me out at McPherson. I want to be with the fellas.”
Roy always answered the same way.
“We’ll drive you ourselves, Elmer.”
Everybody laughed.
Nobody imagined the day would actually arrive.
But now it had.
I looked at Gloria.
“I’m paying the difference myself if that’s what it takes.”
She shook her head.
“You always were stubborn, just like your father.”
Then she leaned toward the funeral director.
“Go ahead and reserve the local cemetery. That’s where he’s being buried.”
I stood up so quickly my chair scraped against the floor.
“No. You’re not making that decision without me.”
Gloria’s expression changed.
She opened her purse again and pulled out another document.
“Kurt, perhaps you should look at this before you start arguing.”
It was a document bearing my father’s signature.
And when I saw what it said, I realized Gloria wasn’t simply trying to save money.
She had another reason for keeping him away from Fort McPherson.
