I hide behind the metal folding chair because my mother, my mother’s mother, and my mother’s mother’s mother all stand at the open casket to pay respects to my great grandfather.
To pay respects includes touching the lifeless body.
As I kneel on the beige carpet underneath the black streamers, my mother spots me, shoots a look. Her mother and her mother’s mother crane their necks while weeping loudly into handkerchiefs.
I step up to the casket but I can’t reach. My uncle picks me up and dangles me above the open box.
I flutter as my tears wet the lapels of the ill-fitting suit that never belonged to my great grandfather.
I touch his hands.
I return to earth to find my mother, my mother’s mother, and my mother’s mother’s mother smiling three smiles.
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