No matter what, my mother does grief her own way, standing apart under the butternut tree, wearing a black wool suit and a black expression, having chosen to ignore my instructions for Tulsa’s celebration of life — to wear bright colors, fishing paraphernalia, and John Deere Tractor caps. Having lost two husbands and a sister but zero sons, she suddenly feels qualified and entitled to prescribe appropriate death rituals for my eleven-year-old son. Tulsa adored digging barehanded for worms in the earth and fishing here on the shores of the Shiktehawk Stream, and this is the best place to bid farewell, although Mum insists that it’s unduly morbid to have a service to scatter Tulsa’s remains along the very same stream that arrested his breath, filling his lungs with water, displacing the air. But if I can bear to send my sweet child’s body into a gas fueled, high temperature fire, then I can certainly bear to stand on this stream bank and gaze at sun shimmery water and flickering trout tails while hoping to glimpse through refracted tears the glittery world my Tulsa saw last.
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