The mist drifted in great sheets above the dense dark green, bordering on black, spruce trees on the hillside across the mere. It was nine o’clock, Mom asked if I would mind scattering spruce sprigs over the road by the gate. This was an old custom. I went down in the rain, laid sprigs over the gravel, looked up at the house, the windows aglow in the gray morning. I cried. Not because of death and its coldness but life and its warmth. I cried because of the goodness that existed. I cried because of the light in the mist, I cried because of the living people in the dead man’s house, and I
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