ACT I:  Send-off

A family like a garden—life-giving, even in loss.

But so tired. Wearied to their roots.

Today the Bradford clan celebrates the life of 42-year-old Emily Grace. Parents, siblings, and kin fill the front row.

From where I sit they look like flowers. Heads bow as blossoms will, after a downpour.

They wear pink, yellow, jade and navy and August green. There are strokes of black like the richest soil.

Staging the public goodbye depletes a family’s energies. It strip-mines their emotional marrow, their spiritual DNA.

And what of the mourners? [Read more…]