Annie’s family rode to the funeral parlor, parked the car, and walked slowly towards the door. There were snow angels everywhere within their sight. They peeked around the corner of the building by the back parking lot, and there were more snow angels. The angels covered every spare space of snow-topped grass that could be found. They looked at one another with astonishment; this was just so unbelievable that they weren’t sure how to even react, anymore. What could explain this? How should they respond? They went back to the door of the funeral parlor and walked inside.
All of the ten employees of the funeral parlor were lined up along the entrance foyer. They had watched the family arrive and had watched their every move after they exited the car. These employees had no better explanation for the family of what had happened than the family did. Annie’s family looked into the faces of the people who had awaited their arrival. The funeral director walked up to the family and solemnly shook all of their hands. From the back of the line of the employees, a solitary pair of hands came together in a clapping motion. Soon all of the employees joined the ovation. Annie’s father looked at the director quizzically.
“Your little girl’s death seems to have touched everyone,” he explained quietly, “and the snow angels have made people think about aspects of dying that we have sometimes ignored. We all used to have such fantasies about death as children. We believed in heaven, we believed in angels, and we believed in something which we could not see with our eyes, but we knew was there. Our parents had taught us about it, our Sunday School teachers had taught us about it, but somehow, when we aged, we forgot. Annie made us remember. Annie made us believe again. The whole town is talking about it. We are all amazed, and stunned. We all lost a precious child. Everyone knew Annie, but that child has brought us more hope than we have ever had before. We salute you, as Annie’s family, and we thank you, because Annie was a gift from God, and we believe that. We are all gifts, we had forgotten that, and one little girl has made us remember.”
There was silence after the director stopped talking. What else could anyone say?“Thank you,” said Annie’s mother, “thank you very much. I think you’ve put into words what we’ve all been feeling. We lost our child, and we found our faith.”