Chapter 9
Milo asked where Mommy was.
I told him the truth in six-year-old language.
“Her ashes are safe.”
“Not in vase?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Verena moved them because she was upset, and another woman asked her to.”
His eyebrows knitted.
“Bad?”
“Moving them without asking us was wrong.”
Good.
Simple.
Then:
“Can Mommy come home?”
I paused.
“What does home mean?”
He pointed upstairs.
“The urn.”
Ah.
The urn had lived in the small memorial room beside Evelyn’s photographs.
To Milo, that was home.
Not cemetery.
Interesting.
I had split the ashes after cremation.
Most buried.
A smaller memorial portion at home.
That was what Verena removed.
I had forgotten how much the household urn mattered to him.
Adults think in ritual categories.
Child thinks location.
“Do you want it back there?”
“Yes.”
Immediate.
That answered one part.
Not all.
The portion Milo knew should return.
For him.
For continuity.
The buried remains could stay where they were.
No need to reinterpret everything.
We restored the home urn.
No flowers shoved inside.
No ceremony.
Milo watched me pour the ashes back carefully.
Then placed the lid himself.
He whispered:
“Hi, Mommy.”
That was all.
I almost made it sacred.
Then he asked for cereal.
May you like
Better.
Life alongside grief.
