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hadn’t been a public viewing of Matthew’s remains. But not just because of the thorough autopsy. For the second reason wasn’t scientific but aesthetic. A corpse filled with formaldehyde and prettied-up with cosmetics to make the dear departed look lifelike, sort of, but not really? Spare me, David had thought. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Never mind formaldehyde. Matthew had already been injected to saturation with too many chemicals.
    So Matthew was cremated. His fifteen-year-old ashes filled a bronze container the size of a coffee grinder. According to local law, David, Donna, and Sarie could have done virtually anything they wanted with the urn. They could have taken it home and placed it on the mantel or stored it in the stereo cabinet or opened it and sprinkled Matthew’s ashes onto a flower garden—just so long as they didn’t dispose of the ashes in a public waterway or on public grounds.
    But the mantel and the stereo cabinet seemed too morbidly remindful, and the flower garden—for all its natural appeal—would have prevented David from transporting Matthew’s ashes if the family ever decided to move. No, to keep the ashes in the urn and then to place the urn in a mausoleum was the only acceptable option in a totally un acceptable force of choice. At least in that way, mother, father, and sister could be close (but not too close) to the beautiful son and brother they’d lost.
    The visitation showed mourners the urn; next to it, a photograph of Matthew in his long-haired glorious prime; and next to that, on a stand, Matthew’s seldom-played Kramer combination electric-acoustic guitar. Hundreds arrived. One heartbroken well-meaning youth brought a plastic bag filled with the light brown hair—already falling out from chemotherapy—that Matthew had told his friends to shave from him. The well-wishers, the mourners, the friends and loved ones at the vigil had been appreciated but emotionally draining. At the sight of Matthew’s hair crammed within the plastic bag brought by Matthew’s friend, David had nearly fainted. But two of David’s friends had escorted him from the mortician’s and driven him to the church where the funeral next day would occur.
    That was where the second mystical experience took place. Donna and Sarie had been going through their own emotional strain, sustained by relatives who helped them to the church. At nine o’clock on a beautiful dusky June night, the family had entered the church. There were arrangements to be made, a funeral to be planned. In the end the music the group selected was “ Pie Jesu (Merciful Jesus),” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sad sublime Requiem , which he had written in honor of his dead father.
    Stooped, barely able to maintain his balance if not for the supporting hands of his two friends, David had managed to enter the shadowy church. As he shuffled up the main aisle, his unsteady footsteps echoing off pews and rafters, his tear-reddened nostrils widening to the redolence of incense, flowers, and scented candles from that morning’s mass, an eerie change went through him. A strength of solace, of well-being and reassurance suddenly grew within him.
    For a second time, he heard the echoing voice of the firefly. It rephrased its words from the night before in the bedroom. “I’m okay, Dad. I’m sorry you hurt, but your grief is the proof of your love for me. Mourn for your loss, but don’t mourn for me. Because you can’t imagine how happy I am.”
    David abruptly straightened. He no longer needed his friends to hold him upright. With a strength that came from spiritual assurance, he approached the front of the church, where family and friends who watched him said afterward that he seemed different more than in manner, almost as if he had a glow.
    He didn’t feel better. His grief was as agonizing as before. Nonetheless he stood straighter. He could function. For he knew beyond doubt that his son was at peace, or in the firefly’s word,