When my mother dies, I will bury that urn with her.
The thickly wooded hills are covered in snow. Beautiful, cold and still as only a deep Northern winter can be. Under a big pile of my grandmother's quilts my mother and I catch up on our news. We gossip and debate and laugh and dissect the social happening of family and world. The icicles hang heavy on the eaves. The night has a million stars. Christmas lights twinkle on every lawn in town. In this small place, we drive around for ten minutes after dark and see them all. This tiny town where I grew up in the golden fields and pine forests. Where everything closes by 10 o'clock and big trucks rumble by on the highway.
In the city it rains all the time. There is no snow. It is warm but damp. I always feel wet. Mildew grows everywhere and you can barely make out the stars. I briefly entertain the idea of living back in the country but quickly wonder what the fuck I would do with myself if I did?
I don't sleep as much as I should but I cook. I make a mess out of my mother's kitchen and she grumbles as she cleans up behind me. My grandmother is getting old. My mother is cobbling together her new home with bits and ends she finds. Making a new life with no money once again. My brothers are being... well, my brothers. And I'm trying to get my stupid life to work in some sort of fashion. I give it a good kick and hope it will start better in the new year.
I touch the urn on the red book shelf and watch everything change around me. We go on and trust that somehow everything will be okay.
