There was a lot to be done in those last days, and no time to do it. Item one: Make Miss Kathy and B co-executors of our estate. It came as no surprise to anyone that people preferred to call them as a couple, and it was a rare instance when you mentioned one without the other. Item two: Have B turn theme albums into chronological scrapbooks. Item three: Have Miss Kathy trace back the Russian family I was the flower girl for, for invites. Item four: Have Tommy and Marie Ann agree they are soulmates, problem: they never met each other. Item five: Schooling for Tommy and Marie Ann. Item six: Visit. Beauty's and Apache's apple orchards.
"That should be enough for us to work on," I said as Miss Molly retrieved the sheet of paper from the printer.
"You expect these two to have an enduring love for each other; are you going to have an arranged marriage?" Kathy expressed with concern.
"Nothing so ham-fisted as that my dear; matchmaking is a fine art."
"Miss Kathy, just because they have not met does not mean anything. Have Marie Ann, and her friends to retake their junior year at Tommy's school, taking AP classes, core, and electives. You could see the American History paper Marie Ann would write. Then, to finish school in Paris. By then they would have obligations in Paris I would imagine. Daisy, and I plan on paying for their education."
A few days before their deaths, while at the ranch, Molly and Daisy visited the apple orchards. "I am glad Ceres is not here to see this. She would have never permitted it. It was obvious the trees were either dead or diseased. Call B and tell him to say in lieu of flowers to donate to a fund to dig up and replant both apple orchards. One species slightly sweet for Beauty and the other a more robust species for Apache," said Said Molly.
Leave it for Miss Daisy, and Miss Molly to plan their funeral different than everyone else. They wanted to have two viewings to make it easier for the people who wanted to visit them. During this time, they would have a framework holding up their phones and use Skype for people around the world to pay their respects. During the viewings Miss Molly and Miss Daisy wanted the people of today to meet their friends of yesteryear. B and Miss Kathy were critical with this to make the scrapbooks. Miss Kathy, in desperation, put out a public plea to find the descendants of the Russian wedding. She included the picture of Miss Molly. A group picture of the wedding party, and the wedding invitation with an English translation.
The response was immediate. Molly even though she didn't know Russian, saved the bride's wedding day by getting Mom to the wedding in time. The story was passed down through the generations; no one in the family wanted to forget Miss Molly. In the end, there were over twenty scrapbooks scattered around the funeral home for everyone to look at; the wedding album would be given to the Russians.
Mr. Mayor went to the safe in his office and retrieved two envelopes. "How did he know so many years ago." The day after the Beloved Christmas Tree was hit by lightning, twice, his ancestor scrapped off some shavings, placed some of the crystals from the star and some soil into each envelope, then marked the top section "Molly" and the other "Daisy."
Doing his due diligence, the younger Mr. Mayor placed the two envelopes in the open caskets.
It was to be a pre-dawn funeral, with the lowering of the caskets, between sunrise to thirty minutes after sunrise; this was the time Daisy and Molly spent with God; they already had their prayer time with each other.
Mr. Mayor closed the whole town to car traffic on the day. The city paid tribute by riding horses to the funeral. Miss Kathy made a large loop, starting at the club with two horse-drawn hearses, followed by over one hundred horses, most carrying two people. The circuit then went to "Image of God" and encircled the area they both worked on every day. Then they headed to the Northfield Church for a short service and burial.
Marie, having trouble keeping her emotions in check, went to a secluded room at the funeral home to compose herself. She was the keynote speaker, but the format was such that the burden was taken off her.
Mr. Mayor got up first, "Hello everyone, I am the Mayor of this town, and I welcome all of you to the service for Miss Molly and Miss Daisy. Leave it to them to have a service that has rules for it. Being respectful for them and others are number one. We all grieve in different ways, and some may take longer than others, adults as well as the children. The Holy Spirit is going to lead this service. This service is being broadcast worldwide so all of Miss Molly's friends who can't be here can participate.
"Mee and Pria have generously offered to translate French to English. I am told there are two people in Paris at the plaza that are using the translators in the computers to change English to French, and then they are broadcasting it to half the plaza, and the other half of the plaza will be an English speaking broadcast.
"If you speak yet another language, we have a computer in the back that you can set up for your language. It has noise-canceling headphones, so you only hear your language."
When Marie got to speak, she first mentioned their payer logs. "I took the liberty to look at their current prayer logs; each have been keeping them for over eighty years. Prayer logs are to show you exactly how faithful God has been to you, and you can look back and review all the times He was there for you. Most of the time there is an ending point, when someone gets better you have an ending point for when they were sick. Miss Molly and Miss Daisy both wrote down the same prayer for their last item; while it is marked in yellow to show God was faithful there was no endpoint. Their prayer was for God to call them 'Good and faithful servants'. As you know, they had a special bond. I would like to relate one of those stories. It happened while they were in college; their schools were both religious, and secular, the religious school was almost identical to each other. The schools were on opposite coasts."
"On the day Molly's Dad got in a car accident, Daisy knew before Molly. Daisy told Molly who was hurt, not by telephone or post, but by her mind; when one hurt the other did. Shortly thereafter, I was mobilizing my family in France to fly here. Both girls had life threating fevers by now. Their roommates have figured out their actions and they were being prayed over nightly. How everything happened only God knows. Flight itineraries streamed in except for a text because of a missed flight. There was no communications between people, yet over thirty people responded."
"Molly was told to get some food to help her fever she was coming back to the room, Daisy came charging at her, spilling salad dressing all over Molly; both fevers were now broken. God blessed Northfield to be a very tight-knit town; it was not always like that. It seemed Miss Joy was the one common thread that held the town together."
"It was her that was almost drowned on the day of the flood, when the whole town was washed into the river. It was only through God's grace that Mr. Jerry and Miss Gail came to save her in their skulls. The weather was so bad normal water rescue was not possible, but the skulls skimmed the water. God gave them endurance: the distance and time in the elements would have taken its toll."
"The more people tried to separate the two girls the more it backfired on them."
An old man was next to stand up. "I am originally from Meadowbrooke. I was only a young boy when we had a school project. It started out to get life back in Northfield as they didn't even have any birds or plants, just their beloved Christmas Tree. The project turned out to be a disaster, later only Molly and Daisy rode into Meadowbrooke on horseback, Molly carrying a white flag. They were not received well. Daisy and I spit-shook hands to seal a deal between us."
"A week later, they were back and ready to make bird houses. All the other kids were invited, but the mothers didn't want them to go. The fathers overruled them and at long last, everyone showed up in Meadowbrooke in a convoy."
"Miss Daisy was big into going out to find birds, so we both had a bet to see who could spot the most birds. Shortly after is when they spotted an extinct bird, just sitting on a fence post. How do you compete with that. I was the one who called to concede; they only accepted the concession if we all got binoculars from our Daddy's, and to continue to look for more birds on weekends."
Beth was next to stand up. She was in St. Vincent's on her new iPad. "Miss Molly and I had a girl's night out. She ordered the driver to take us to the best burger and shake place the city had to offer; he had to call his daughter to find the right one. I love burgers and shakes, it was a treat. When we got back to her room at the hospital, she showed me how to make a prayer log. She said the children were looking to me to lead them. She even gave me a questions book for all the questions I ask God. I told her I don't have any questions to ask. Her response was 'you will', the hard part is listening for the answers."
The girls were used to wearing school uniforms. Now that Marie Ann, Mee and Pria were going to school in North America, Marie Ann had made three sets for each girl, for every season of the year. Included was a patch for the school that was like the school crest. Instead of a circle, a golden triangle was used to mean the Trinity. The school were known as the Eagles; Marie Ann used a Golden Eagle instead of the Bald Eagle. She removed the Latin from the crest and only used the initials for the school.
After one week of very unhospitable reactions from the school, Marie Ann, Mee, and Pria, her best friends from France, commanded the attention of the cafeteria. The principal stopped a teacher from intervening saying, "She has the right to speak her mind as long as she doesn't cross the line."
Marie Ann was pissed, but she chose her words well.
"My friends and I have been here for one week. We have heard all the backstabbing, and snide remarks that are said behind our backs because you are not willing to tell them to our faces."
"Let me explain our badges. We have a gold triangle to symbolize the Trinity; we are new Christians. God is essential to us. You have a Bald Eagle as this means something different in your country than ours; we picked the Golden Eagle. And just the initials for the school."
"As for our agreement, we are having a hard time wrestling our emotions with it right now. We have finished our year three classes already. We came to take AP, core, and electives for a year, to know America better, and to have Tommy catch up to us in classes so he could join us in Paris for year four."
"Your authorities know of our deal. There is also a clause that states if any or all of us don't want to come, we are allowed. Also, if any or all of us wants to leave it is our own decision, not someone else. We agreed not to join any clubs or sports, which is a shame. Mee's grace in gymnastics winds her up with a chest full of gold medals; floor exercise and uneven bars are her specialties."
"He will be welcomed with open arms in Paris, as any of you would be."
