By Molly Greeley
We move tomorrow, to a neighborhood with sidewalks where your sister and brother can ride their bikes. All day one thought has pricked at my mind. Now, with the last boxes packed, I go outside to kneel beside your tree, one palm flat upon the earth where you were buried.
You are gone—tiny curved body, asleep in your sac, absorbed into the soil years ago—yet leaving you behind makes it hard to breathe. I want to press myself against the ground and stay there.
I’m grateful for my children’s self-absorption; they don’t question the dirt under my fingernails. Anymore.
There’s a lot to like about this writing – strength and sorrow mixed.
The first three words, the way written, caused me to stumble. It reads smoother – tomorrow we move…
I think the line “All day.. ” could be eliminated and the space devoted to other thoughts. I see what you were trying to do, but it reads much smoother without it.
Still a nice bit of writing.
I found this story very moving. The pain of leaving a dead child for the benefit of two living ones comes through so clearly. I had a problem with the last paragraph: bringing in her two children’s “self-absorption” and the dirt under her fingernails seems extraneous to the story line. The second paragraph, on the other hand, is masterful. I’ll have that image in my mind for a long time to come.
I agree with Joanna’s comments, above. This was a great story; the changes cited would have made it even better.