The thoughts I have that I can't, don't, won't say out loud.
The hands we clung to. The ones that were the only recognizable part on that last day in the hospital. The ones I forced to hold onto mine after that infuriating lost child episode at Disney. The fingers I scrubbed dirt from, let knot my hair into a nest at the base of my neck as we fell asleep, helped paint cards, encouraged you to thieve icing with, kissed repeatedly in their tiny form when they pinched my skin too hard. Those are dust. Gone and yet still here. Burned.
I never thought too hard about the box that goes in the ground until that box wasn't you. Or I did, but it passed. I worried fleetingly that my grandma would be cold. She needed that blanket she was always asking me to get her. And the idea tugged at me that no one would be there to trim my grandpa's nails or that hair on his ears he was always telling me to cut off if I wasn't doing something in the next 5 minutes. I've entertained some purely certifiable thoughts about dead people, but they're always the kind that resolve themselves in the asking.
"I have to tell her about the baby."
"Except she isn't there to tell."
"I need to ask him what the name of that horse was he had in 1928."
"Nope. Never gonna know the answer unless my memory spontaneously spits it out."
They come and go the way your brain processes that you're turning a door handle and, oops, the lock is fastened.
Some days I talk to the little box on Daddy's dresser. Some days I pretend it doesn't exist. Some days I want to take it and lay in bed, but I haven't yet. Profound self control. Half of you. Probably some flakes of someone else. I read that after cremation there's no way to gather all the ashes. So, who do we have in our house that was in line before you? And what people have taken a miniscule piece of you home for themselves? And do they have it or did they scatter it? Part with us, part with your mom. Your Mimi asked for some, and Daddy gave it to her. How could he not? She needs you too. But opening that bag almost killed us both. Ash and white specks. These hard white specks that I guess are bone. And heavy. So heavy and dense. Just that almost half of you. And there's more in other places, that I do and don't know about so, yes, you're nowhere and you're everywhere. You're gone and infinitesimally existent. And I'm standing in the kitchen while your brother asks for an ice cream cone, and thinking about the oxymoronic value of the whole thing.
Things I can't, don't, want to say out loud.
