DEAR ABBY: Recently, my friend went to a wake and told me the person in the casket was holding a fork. My friend told me there is a story behind this custom. Can you tell me what it is? -- DAILY READER IN WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.
DEAR DAILY READER: The story, titled "Keep Your Fork," has been widely shared on the Internet. It appeared in "A Third Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul" and was authored by Roger William Thomas.
It concerns a young woman who had been given only a short time to live, and who instructed her pastor that she would like to be buried with a fork in her right hand. She went on to say, "In all my years of attending church potluck dinners, when the dishes of the main course were being cleared, someone would say, 'Keep your fork.'"
She said the main course was her favorite part of the meal because she knew "something better was coming ... something wonderful, and with substance." What she wanted was to convey to her loved ones at her funeral her belief that something better was to come.
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