I thought at first that there would be a punch line, but there wasn't

I go with friends sometimes over to Woodland 

to Big Mac Daddy's authentic Irish pub 

to get drunk and sing karaoke.

This last time, on St. Paddy's Day,

the karaoke guy's father had died

earlier in the day, and suddenly he tells us this,

and I thought at first that there would be a punch line,

but there wasn't. Just:

"in a plane crash."

And so then he sings a song to his dad—

that Clapton song about 

when I see you in Heaven—

and a woman from somewhere in the bar

goes over to him and hugs him,

and he's singing and crying

while she hugs him.

Then the owner of the bar gets up there

and says how close the karaoke guy

was to his dad, and says 

how it's a demonstration of character

that he came in to work tonite.

"I wouldn't have come in," he says.

"So let's support him," he says.

"He's a great guy."

We cheered.

There were twenty-five of us

in the dim bar, give or take.

Twenty-five souls.

We cheered.

We confessed to being still alive.

Without irony, we were suddenly able to believe

in the shapes shifting in the dim light—

we drank and danced.

But there was nothing we could do to support him.

[Joe Wenderoth {1966- } 'The Sacrifice', from If I Don’t Breathe How Do I Sleep]