Brumation | Melissa N. Vincel
December, my son’s grandmother dies, so I take him to clean out her closet.
I grab her purple coat, shut the door, head to trample woods behind her house. From a log, I pry fallen shards and spy a brittle wood frog, forearms frozen in tiny prayer to leaf litter, unblinking lids retracting into its skull.
My son whimpers, so I explain it’s only a half-death, amphibian magic trick, superpower blood pushing against winter’s dark. It’s just a waiting game in the wooded shadows.
His child ears are only four years old so he hears nothing but flakes melting. His mouth is only four years old so he stutters afraid to d-d-die, not g-g-g-good at s-s-s-still.
The stutter worsens. By January, my neighbor can’t understand him. By Valentine’s, his teacher offers social-emotional sessions. I begin the worry, wonder how other women balance dying parents and not ruining children.
We try speech therapy, dentist, chiropractor. Even Mama comes out five syllables. Sometime in March, I dream the purple coat striding over a cracking lake. I wake to pull it from a box. I drape it over the dining room chair and announce Mimi is eating with us now.
We hold each other before meals from then on, one sleeve each grasped by my hand and his, a circle of human flesh and wool. We tell my mother’s coat about the day, fill her pockets with plastic dinosaurs, and sniff air around the notched collar.
May, the ground thaws. I begin the dig to bury her ashes under the birch. Halfway through the task, my son creeps from the porch. He is a spray of violets moving across the ground. He is pond ice tinkling into warming water. He stands by my hip taller than the branch he swung on last fall, chin pinkening, tears warming his tongue into a clever thing again.
We drop the ashes into the hole together. Words fall cleanly from his mouth, water the earth like prayers. My hands clasp in awe of moving things, of turning earth, of his hopping legs reborn.
About the Author:
Melissa N. Vincel is a writer from NE Ohio who has published poetry, prose, and travel writing for 25 years. She is re-emerging after a long break for motherhood. Recent prizes include a fellowship to the DISQUIET International Literary Festival, a feature as one of 30 Ohioan poets for National Poetry Month, and an Assembly for the Arts Boost grant. Visit her website: melissavincel.com.