Gran crossed each thing off the checklist, one by one, as we moved through the house. We cleared and emptied out all the rooms, leaving each now bared and void of life, despite the dampened sunlight spilling through the windows and splattered on the pastel walls. By the end of the day, the callouses along my fingers were swollen white and hardened, and my respiratory tract was burning from excessive chlorine.

The thrown-away objects didn’t form a massive mountain when dumped on the front lawn. However, as I piled up the small black bags, each holding small and ordinary things—a splice of Mother and the memories of her—I wondered if erasing Mother’s living traces would make us forgot her death any faster, or easier, or would it only add guilt on top of our sorrow?