@carolkean I feel like I would still be able to know who wrote this even if your name wasn't on the top of the page. You have a unique writing style. In a really good way.

• How often I found myself holding still, in hopes of sensing her spirit in the cabin, on the forest path, under the red rock or the juniper, but then the black truck came, and a man in uniform delivered the package that contained my mother.

Like...damn. The entire story is riddled with pull-able quotes, but this line ^^^ really did it for me. It encapsulates the story's dilemma and tone with one descriptive, palatable sentence.

And the shift towards the end, and that title...I could go on.