I laid near my father’s grave, or what passes for a grave, his bronze marker on the edge of the cliff where we launched his ashes seventeen years ago. If he resides any particular place, it is this. I laid my head on a fresh pillowslip. A cloud saturated with blue and gray and purple hovered overhead. I closed my eyes and there was thunder in the distance. I kept my body flat, the length of me touching his earth. This is as close as I can be to the little girl curled in his lap, but those were not my thoughts on the mountain. In fact I wasn’t thinking at all, just letting the thunder roll and the clouds gather dark above me. When I rolled onto my side, facing his marker and the edge of the cliff, a wind picked up washing over my face and shoulder and hip. I wanted to stay, to let the storm flatten me to the ground, but Tania and John were collecting to go and I knew better. A quick kiss and I rolled to my knees, getting up like the 60-year-old woman that I am. Only then…trailing behind as we walked down the mountain did I talk with Dad. “I love you, I miss you, you are with my everyday.”
