I spent time Sunday with my siblings – two brothers and a sister.  We gathered in rural New Hampshire to spread what remained of my mother’s ashes in the old family cemetery across from our childhood home.

The four of us stood together briefly under a mottled autumn sky, as my sister, the oldest, doled out little gray piles of Mumsy into our waiting hands.  There were jokes about her hesitance to come out of the bottle and about the gravestones that we were dusting, marked Samuel and his wife Sally, like our parents, but from the 1800’s.  We recalled what may have been a joke about how fiscally prudent their marriage had been – their gravesites having been prepaid 150 years in advance.

Standing several inches taller than the others, I read Mary Oliver’s “The Journey”.  My little brother, little in the pecking order sort of way, bowed his head.  My other brother pursed his lips and nodded.  My sister looked out into the field below the cemetery.   We circled our arms around each other and collectively asked for peace.  And then we were done.

My sister walked back to her car to go home and watch football with her boyfriend.  My brother’s and I climbed in together to head to my dad’s house for pie and coffee prior to him leaving New England for the winter.  He did not ask where we had been.  We did not tell him.  We ate the pie, hugged Dad and his girlfriend and wished them safe travel.  Then we each got in our cars and headed to our homes.

I have yet to find out how I feel about having done this.

But, like so many things, I write into it to see what I can see.

I see my sister (the beautiful one, according to my mother) and I (the smart one) standing close like real sisters.  We reach our arms around each other’s waist and try to pull closer.  I know we both want it.

My sister says to my little brother who is standing a step away “get over here” and he does. She talks about how the three of us had each other but he had to do it mostly alone.  He doesn’t say anything but he looks down at his sneakers and rocks back on his heels. He always needs to know that he belongs.

My other brother had asked that we be silent.  We all talk anyway.  He is the “Lost Child”, the third born, the playwright in our family.  He earns his living making people do what he says on stage.

My sister has lost two children, one at birth and one at 23.  I do not know how she bears this.  When I look at her, I crumble inside.  In fact, this is how I feel with all three of them.  Their tragedies live in me.

If I could paint pictures, I would be able to reproduce the sky and the trees, some of which still sported their fall fashion, the gravestones and the stonewall that encircled them and the four adult children; hunkered together to lay things to rest. If I were funnier I would make jokes about the way her ashes blew against my brother’s pant legs and about what a handful she still was.

But as it is, I can only write about it.  I bring up the scent of apples starting to rot on the ground, the papery sound of leaves gathering together up against the stonewall, the crunchy gray lichen covering all but the names Samuel and Sally and I can see me in the picture.  I’m standing with my family, whom I love and I know that, for now, we’ve done the best we can.