Ce qu'il y a de bien avec les traditions, c'est qu'elles conservent la force des souvenirs.

I have found that sometimes, moments get stuck in your body. They are there, lodged under your skin like hard seed-stones of wonder or sadness or fear, everything else growing up around them. And if you turn a certain way, if you fall, one of them could get free. It might dissolve in your blood, or it might spring up a whole tree. Sometimes, once one of them gets out, they all start to go.

When parents talk about their pasts, the stories start to stick in your head. But the memories that you inherit look different from the now-world, and different from your own memories, too. Like they have a color all their own. I don’t mean sepia-toned or something. My parents aren’t even that old. I just mean that there is something particular about their glow.

I know I could have saved your ashes to put into the ocean, but I wanted you to have the journey, all the way with the currents, to the open sea. And I know that when I finally get to see the waves washing on the shore, to hear them, I will feel you there.