Leaving

Sadness flows upwards. From the base of my torso it moves in waves, up through my chest, neck and shoulders, pushing saline out my eye sockets and tingles down my arms.

Is it the text message from my sister who I already miss and don't ever feel I had enough time with? Or

Is it the gruffness with which my husband and I address one another when tense from moving weighty bags and children through an airport on five hours sleep and getting us parked into our tight little seats.

I believe it is the former set off by the latter since now the sadness is expanding like a mushroom cloud, its energy extending down my legs as well as arms all the way into my fingers and toes accompanied by images flipping like cue cards through my mind: My father gripping the back of a chair; my step-mother's smile; my sister holding Frances on her lap; Jane cooking pancakes in the morning.

I feel it in my chest, cool and lively like the first breath of winter air biting at my nostrils, early on a school day. Each day I stepped out onto that same sidewalk this week I felt my history held in the cement under my feet, in the trees singing at the tops of their lungs, their branches in full chorus blooms. It was even in the air, warm with spring and hanging on the faint scent of the East River.