Cold Hands

The stones held the cold like a secret.

I sat in the pew and my fingers went numb.

My mother was crying next to me.

I wanted to cry too—

the kind of crying that makes sense at a funeral,

the kind that people expect.

But the cold kept everything at a distance.

It made the ritual feel formal,

made my hands feel like they belonged to someone else,

made grief feel like a polite obligation

I couldn't quite commit to.

The thermostat hung on the wall, untouched.

Nobody adjusted it.

Everyone just sat there shivering slightly,

as if the cold was part of the point—

as if suffering a little was the right way

to say goodbye to someone.

I rubbed my hands together.

They made no sound.

The cold had stolen that too.

When we left, my fingers took a long time to warm.

I sat in the car and held them against my thighs,

trying to feel something other than the numbness

that the stones had given me,

trying to remember what heat felt like.