CoffeeTime: “FIVE WIVES PLUS ONE”

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The funeral director was scheduled to bury the body of a man who had been married to five former wives, and had a current fiancée when he died. A fiancée that the ex-wives did not know existed.

In this town, when a person passed away and had no specific pastor they wanted to conduct their funeral, that director was accustomed to calling upon a local Baptist pastor to perform the ceremony. That local pastor was my own husband.

The day before the funeral, every ex-wife - in chronological order, no less – marched herself into the director’s office. They each proceeded to explain to him that having a Baptist pastor to officiate the service was impossible, and why.

Seems the deceased, who bore the well-used title of husband (and lousy dad to his own children) was prone to being a member of whatever church denomination served his purposes at the current time.

Each ex-wife demanded a minister from a different denomination. It was all finally capped off with the fiancée declaring, “I know for certain that my fiancée has always been an atheist, and no minister of any kind will be conducting his funeral.”

The director kindly told each of them, “I am confident that this Baptist pastor will conduct a service that will be pleasing to you.”

At the funeral, the uncertain atmosphere became even more tense when the funeral service had to be delayed for an hour, due to the tardiness of the current fiancée.

Whom until today, please remember, none of the wives even knew existed.

But my husband finally conducted the service, with each of the five wives having an older lady sitting next to her.  Arms crossed, unsmiling, eyes emotionless, and very determined to make certain her daughter’s ex-husband was dead and buried.

Later when the burial service was finally concluded, my husband spoke to each family member as he always did, and headed towards his car. But. Unbeknownst to him, the fiancée had slipped over to quietly whisper to the funeral director that she wanted to address the crowd.

Wanting to please the family, as he always attempted to do for every funeral, Mr. Carson raised his voice over the hum of the group and announced that the fiancée had requested to be allowed to address the assembled mourners.

My husband stopped midstride, immediately feeling the hair on the back of his neck stand at attention. There was no ignoring the growing tension and anger in the air from the five ex-wives and irate mothers.

As the fiancée spoke in glowing terms of the deceased, my pastor/husband kept whispering to Mr. Carson, “This isn’t gonna end well, Joe! You need to cut her off and put an end to this!” But before Joe could move to interrupt, the fiancée exclaimed, “No man could have been sweeter to my two little girls. They loved him so much!”

Fourth of July fireworks among a few. Ice cold blizzard conditions among some of the others. Joe and my husband? These two smarter-than-the-average-bear guys took shelter.

Who could blame them?