“The Resurrection Morning”
by
Winifred Holtby
When Mr Barrow died, none of us knew quite what to say to Mrs Barrow. ‘Deepest sympathy in your loss’ perhaps was best, because you can sympathise with fortune as well as with misfortune, and loss may be good riddance of bad rubbish.
Not that Mr Barrow was exactly bad rubbish. The obituary notices called him a ‘prominent citizen of Kingsport,’ and he had been a town councillor and a sidesman at St Agatha’s Church, and left a tidy sum invested in War Loan and corporation stock. A pious man, the vicar of St Agatha’s called him, and sent a cross two feet by one, particularly handsome. Mrs Barrow, however, was not pious. After ten years of married life she had abandoned her belief in God. Her husband could insist upon her attending church, but he could not prevent her from sitting down whenever the rest of the congregation stood up, even during the Creeds. What he said to her after the services we never knew; but Mrs Barrow told me that if the Almighty was such that He could appreciate her husband, Mr Barrow was welcome to Him.
I watched her at the funeral. She was over seventy, a worn-out little woman in her new black. But she held her chin up and her hymn book in both hands, and sang with the perfect confidence of stalwart incredulity:
‘On the resurrection morning
Soul and body meet again . . .’
Of course there was no Resurrection Morning, and there was no God, and Mr Barrow was safely hammered down into his grand mahogany coffin with brass handles. Continue reading ““The Resurrection Morning,” an Easter story by Winifred Holtby”
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