PART 1: THE FUNERAL WE NEVER KNEW ABOUT
I learned that my father had died while standing in the parking lot of a feed store in Clinton, Missouri. It was a cold Thursday afternoon in late October, and I was loading mineral supplements into my truck when an elderly rancher named Glen Paxton approached me with an expression I couldn’t understand.
Glen had known my family for decades, and he was usually the kind of man who greeted everyone with a joke. That afternoon, however, he placed a hand on my shoulder and quietly offered his condolences.“I’m sorry about your father, Troy. Harlan was a good man.”
I lowered the sack I was carrying and stared at him, assuming Dad had suffered some kind of accident. At seventy-one, he still worked around cattle, and I immediately imagined that he’d been injured at the livestock auction.
“What happened to Dad, Glen? Is he in the hospital?”Glen removed his hat and looked at me with growing concern. His answer made me feel as though the ground had disappeared beneath my feet.
“Son, your father passed away almost two weeks ago. I thought you boys already knew.”
I stood there in disbelief while Glen explained that Dad had suffered a heart attack at home. His second wife, Charlene, had discovered him the following morning and arranged a small funeral at a Baptist church in Lincoln, Missouri.
