I remembered a time when, at the age of three or four, I had come upon a little bird that had perished in the sharp cold of winter. As I’d held the tiny frozen corpse in my hands, my brother had gently explained that the spirit of the little creature was winging overhead, safe in a realm beyond cold and hunger, and that I should lay its remnant in the earth to feed and nourish the new life of spring. My brother had dried my tears and helped me dig the hole. And he was right: in spring, a little plant with feathery blue-gray flowers had grown there. Grandmother taught me its proper name, but I
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