We dropped down into Denver, the lights below, the wisps of cloud and snow, a funny time of year to visit. A time you wouldn’t unless you had to, the passing of my brother-in-law Chip, a celebration of life at the house with memory boards, family and friends. The kids gathered round the kitchen island, ordering out Chinese, buffet style with paper plates and napkins. The strange feel in the air, all of us trying to make the best of it, happy to be together but for our circumstances. In the morning, that slate blue wintry sky like the paintings from the southwest hung around the house. Patches of snow on the neighbor’s roofs still, icy bands along the streets. The sun rising slow, a hot white ember in a stew of cold and gray, this day we remember Chip.

Categories: death, Memoir, prose, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, Memoir, prose, short form, William Pearse writer