The Resurrection
—For Jim Gilliom, Easter Sunday, 1994

This story is about a little girl
who died on Easter Sunday
and about her father who could no longer whistle.
Everyone knew at once,
the family, the neighbors,
that life would never be the same
without the little girl,
but it took a while for everyone to realize
that life would never be the same
without the father’s whistle.

No one tried to talk him into it
because they understood the whistle
was somehow with the little girl,
gone, it seemed, forever.

Nobody knew what happened that day at the plant,
or if anything did,
but even before he arrived home
a neighbor lady called to say
how much it meant to hear the whistle.
“Your father has started whistling again,”
the mother told her son,
who then carried the father’s tune in his heart
until one Easter Sunday
many years later and many miles away,
in a sermon of resurrection,
the son was able at last to tell this story,
and to whistle.

And the spirit of his father was released
as a blessing to all who heard it.