I was sad, sure, but seeing his body did something else to me: it deepened my anger. Mom, Mitch, Grandma and Grandpa, they all cried. I tried to, but I couldn’t. I felt pain and loss and heartbreak, but I couldn’t muster a tear. I wanted to cry because somehow that would feel normal, but I just grew angrier. I replayed the moment he collapsed in my head over and over, each time followed by his last words to me, “You’re so strong. I understand now.” Something much darker than grief festered in my heart. What’s happening to me? I lingered when my family returned to the house and prepared to leave. Vermont, the isolated farm, we didn’t belong there—we belonged in the Weald. We wouldn’t be going back that day, or anytime soon after, but I promised my father that we would go back. With Mom’s permission, Tse-xo-be cremated my father’s body and gathered the ashes. He put them in an urn Tadewi created. She etched it with the bluffs from the Weald. I carried the urn into the house, reluctant tears finally finding my eyes, and handed it to Mom.
