Gideon Maughan

Beginnings

It's chilly and humid here in the finished basement of my mother's house. I came to visit as quickly as I could when her health took a sharp and sudden turn for the worse. She'd been battling breast cancer for the last eleven years, with the last five years in stage four. She died on Sunday, surrounded by her children and a handful of her grandchildren. For the last several days, the house has been abuzz with activity: five adults catching up, cooking, joking, and planning for a funeral, and a grundle of teens and pre-teens making the most of their summer, running in and out of the house, slamming doors, watching movies, playing loudly with other kids from the neighborhood, and filling in life where adults overlook by habit or design. Most of my family have gone back home in preparation for her funeral. The smell of recent laundry and this morning's coffee tell the story of a slightly more lively house than the quiet and shadowy place from which I write.