I heard the news last Friday. They’d been keeping it from me for more than 6 months. A conspiracy of silence. “For your own good”, they said. “Didn’t want to upset you”, they said. All that supposed compassion for me, and then BANG – they just said it. Like they were talking about buying a new car. Perhaps with even less emotion than that. Gone. It’s gone. The last piece of my history – my last surviving relative. The only one who loved me unconditionally and was always there for me. The one I would turn to in my darkest hours of grief and fear; who would heal my wounds with all the love buried deep below its foundations. My church, my shrine, my time capsule. My home. The last flesh and blood of our family, besides me. My twin, born at the same time as me, and though we were pulled from each other at a young age, our love endured. Across decades, miles, oceans. It was the one member of my family that was supposed to have been immortal. No cancer could have taken it from me, the way my parents were taken from me. It was immune to disease. But it was not immune to the elements. And now it has burned to the earth on which it stood.

“Just a house”, they say. “No one was hurt”, they reassure me. Reassure? Someone’s carelessness destroyed the most beautiful gift my father ever gave me, and I am to be thankful that they suffered not one whit? “Eight children inside”, they said, “everyone safe.” Is it wrong for me to ask for a blood sacrifice? Is it wrong for me to demand that they, too, should part with something precious in order to understand the pain they’ve caused? “Bricks and wood”, he said, safely tucked up in his own house, silently thanking the gods that it was my home and not his.

It was I who was to be cremated when my time came, and my ashes to be taken to that holiest of places, built with my father’s own sweat and blood, my mother’s tears. Instead I have survived my greatest love, and now must find an urn worthy of its ashes. I must return one last time to the spot where my childhood lies burned and broken, and pick up the pieces to someday be mixed with my own remains.

A person can outlive their parents, their spouse, and even their children. But a foundation of bricks and mortar built on love and faith – it should have outlived us all. How much more loss can I endure? How many more loved ones will I lose? How many are even left??

They tried to reassure me that I still have a home with them, and that my father built that one, too. But no. The house they speak of, although filled with many happy memories, is not mine. It doesn’t light up with joy at my approach. I am not cured of my ills by simply touching its walls, or placing my cheek against the cool moss out front. I bear their home no ill will, and would never boredly shrug off its demise, but it is their home, not mine. And it will be many moons before I can go there and face them. My insides churn with anger and disgust at idea of seeing their three faces – so unconcerned, so cold.

As in the past, I will move in shadow to my holy place, no one knowing I am even there, and by the light of the moon I will perform its last rites.

Ashes to ashes…

Goodbye, Cottage.

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