Life Expectancy

While Connie, Penny, and Wooton finalize June’s funeral plans, Bill arrives with a teenage girl named Jules. He casually announces that Jules is his daughter from another brief marriage. Connie is stunned that her father has introduced an unknown half-sister during the worst days of her life merely because he did not want to face the funeral alone. Bill then asks to stay in June’s empty house, and Connie refuses to let him treat her mother’s home as free lodging.

Connie vents her anger to Whit and Eugene. Whit wonders whether Bill’s disruptive behavior hides pain, guilt, and the emptiness of living without God. Eugene remembers how death once intensified his own loneliness before he became a Christian. Connie admits that she has prayed for help with her feelings toward Bill, but Whit cautions her not to imitate him by using activity and conflict to avoid her grief.

On the day of the funeral, Connie busies herself directing every reading, hymn, pallbearer, and movement. She fears that if she stops, she will begin crying uncontrollably. Whit reminds her that the service is not a polished production but a gathering to celebrate June’s life and mourn together. After praying with him, Connie speaks honestly about her mother’s faithful service to Jesus, the great emptiness her absence leaves, and the hope of seeing her again. Her promised composure gives way as she tells June she loves her.

Bill listens from outside the church and remains in his car near the grave, persuaded to stay only after Wooton promises him strawberry licorice. Connie invites him to say goodbye, but funerals stir memories of his shameful behavior after his own mother died. He admits that June’s death makes him feel sad, guilty, deficient, and deeply self-pitying. Connie suggests that God may be using those feelings to draw his attention beyond himself, but Bill still refuses to believe.

Before leaving, Bill admits that he wishes he had been a better father. Connie assures him that she has turned out all right, and they tell each other they love one another. Bill then takes his private jet back to Los Angeles, leaving Connie to say another difficult goodbye.

Connie speaks with Jules inside the empty church. Jules believes only in a bleak “food chain” of survival, suffering, and death, and questions what lasting purpose even a good life such as June’s can have. Connie answers that her mother still lives with God because Jesus gave Himself so that death would not be the end. Yet in the middle of fresh grief, Connie cannot find a neat explanation for suffering that Jules will understand.

Jules leaves contact information in a sympathy card and offers to stay in touch. Connie has always wanted a younger sister, though neither knows what their new relationship will become. Back at June’s house, Connie tells Penny that explanations about suffering sound thin when someone is actually in pain. Penny urges her to accept the love waiting downstairs.

As Connie returns to the gathering, another visitor asks for her. Jeff Lewis, her first love, has come to pay his respects.