The phone shocked me awake at 3:06 and into a March pre-dawn. My aunt’s voice was damp with sadness, oozing across 700 miles of airwaves. “The hospice center called; your mother passed away. I’m sorry.” I called my sister, delivered the same message. Cold deeper than winter wrapped itself around me, slithered into cracks of emotions not sealed tightly enough. I pulled on sweatpants, a sweater, piled blankets on the bed, and buried myself. I expected something—her ghost, her once-strong voice with a last goodbye, a final declaration of love in the dark— but there was only bitter cold.
Ashling Kelly is a writer and poet who finds endless inspiration in the Catskill Mountains and life with her partner and their menagerie.