It seemed odd how such a morbid place could remind me of that theatre, but there were more similarities than differences. There were even sounds of a stage organ playing from somewhere behind the tapestry-covered wall, but the theme was different. Instead of a rousing follow-the-bouncing-ball melody, they played “Onward Christian Soldiers.” I had heard the song many times in my Presbyterian Church, but never to such a slowed tempo.

In the draped alcove to the left of the greeting area sat the pewter coffin containing my father. As they might also do in a theatre lobby, people huddled together in quiet groups, whispering and nodding. I couldn’t hear the conversations, but I decided there was more being said about the weather than my dad. This unprecedented assembly of distant relatives and casual friends could not have really known him. He left the US at the beginning of World War II, off to fight the enemy as a mercenary for hire. For part of my life I believed him to have been a Flying Tiger because of his work with the American Volunteer Group in China and India. Instead, I learned that he flew with the CNAC—-the Chinese National Air Corporation. They flew the same skies with the Tigers, dodged the same flak over the Himalayan “Hump,” but flew freight transports instead of fighters.