So much has happened in the last few years that even as I sit here attempting to put everything into words, thoughts leap off cliffs like so many lemmings. I suppose what I can do is navigate the feelings as they arise and convey that here.

My mother died suddenly in December 2023. The stress of her life, and undoubtedly the added stress of my own, finally caught up to her. Heart attacks are now the scariest thing I can imagine and every day I see more people succumbing to their swiftness. You likely know someone who survived a heart attack and I am eternally thankful they have because many, many more leave us in an instant.

She’s joined my maternal grandparents and uncle I barely knew, in a quiet mountain cemetery maintained by my great uncle and a friend to the family who has buried more of my relatives than I will ever truly know. It is one of the last truly serene places in my mind, so far from the noise of paved streets and industrial pollution. It is always a good five to ten degrees cooler on the mountain; somehow, that little field is even colder. It’s as if nature respects the workers of the land and offers them a comforting respite from the searing heat and toil of the lives they led.

It is strange to be the last storm-battered stem of a much larger family tree. I have relatives I will never know who may or may not know I exist, and their families extend far into the distance as my own gently sways, awaiting a wind strong enough to sever it from the branch fully. Long ago I’d convinced myself I’d made peace with this reality, and I still think I have. It’s just the realization of being the last one here that feels too heavy to think about when I’m in a particularly emotionally disheveled state.

And right now, friends, I am truly emotionally disheveled. None of it is anything I can speak about publicly but the source extends to virtually every aspect of my life. Do read into what I’m saying here because there’s probably some part that you know about that’s fed into that statement, but it is more than any single event. It is the state of my world, and the world outside myself, that’s brought all this together.

I’m attempting to see all the upheaval as a clear indication that I should take stock of the things that serve me, be it my hobbies, my associations, or my commitments. Realistically, the last 10 years of my life have had more stability than I’ve ever known and a lifetime on the road and re-invention brought about by new schools and new communities has prepared me to embrace the inevitability that everything has an end. Trying to stave off that end is where we truly injure ourselves.

My last act of love toward my mother was to officiate her funeral. That truth makes all the turmoil more tolerable and is something no one will ever be able to take from me. The philosophies I adhere to were more curated by her than by any outside influence. She imparted the old knowledge of my family to me, a family that has seen the horrors of the world and chose their paths according to their needs.

And now I understand my grandfather’s quietness. I understand my mother’s solitude. That inner strength to accept terrible loss comes from reflection and study, and most of all the curation of self. We are our own people, and we can give our gifts to the world if we choose to. But sometimes we simply have to sit in a quiet place and allow that space to speak to us. Like chilly mountain graves.