First published here
His illness was long, but the funeral seemed longer. Worth Maloney had been a leader, a force of nature, a star in the small community. He’d done so much for so many that every pastor in the little town wanted, needed his time to regale Worth’s contributions. He’d been the loan officer of the town’s only bank, the man who manipulated rules to give loans to townspeople of questionable credit. Worth knew they’d make good. He was a deacon in the church, a member and sometimes president of every fuzzy animal men’s club in town, chairman of the little food bank, founder of housing for local lost souls, a long-time member of the Jubilee, Mississippi’s city council where he regularly and humbly declined offers of the mayoral position and, instead, received the implied crown of leadership without official vote. Worth was the go-to guy for everything in Jubilee.
Then he died.
Izzy, the only child of Worth and Mabel, was reluctantly charged with all the funeral arrangements and her mother’s uncertain future.
Diane Thomas-Plunk 
Southerners are better at wearing their public masks and keeping their personal Hells to themselves. Worth and Mom were very good at that while Izzy, who thought herself all grown up, discovers she still has a whole lot to learn about what it means to be human.
Extremely well done in so few words. The story reached deep inside and snagged a similar loop in my own history and unraveled a few more stitches I thought put to rest long ago.
Pretty good when you can do that. Pretty damn good.
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