Picking a fight with your wife? That is the only sane thing to do when you know your mother is possibly on the brink of something you don’t want to acknowledge, even though it is staring you in the face.

You echo your father’s thoughts; the ones he doesn’t voice as the reality of life sets in to became individual, pointed and real. You want her to be who she was before. When she was perfect and whole. Yet, when death now follows your loved ones a little too closely, your life becomes different. You feel seemingly alone in the knowledge that Mom is no longer as available as when you were younger and more innocent to the workings of life. That is the ultimate pressure and heartbreak of the real, so you pick a fight instead. It is easier to get angry than to say I’m scared and lonely and afraid of what tomorrow will bring. Your grief is overwhelming and you can’t bear to even think of it, let alone feel it. Not yet. Not until it’s time. And especially, not now.

When we face the inevitable juncture of life and death at some point in our lives we find ways to comfort ourselves, to accept the inevitability and bargain we seemingly make with life. It is always love and understanding and faith as we move forward to build a better tomorrow that makes the difference between death and resurrection.

Whether it matters to my ear is of little consequence, he saw it, it struck him as unique enough to be mentioned. Write your own essay and shut up. When you have the wonderful body of work Almond does, you can kvetch all you want.

The sentence we are talking about is the second sentence and first sentence of the first paragraph.

“A young Asian woman with a scone was holding forth.”

As a writer, the lead-in sentence

“A young woman with a scone was holding forth.”

isn’t strong enough to tie in the opening line and move the story forward. A descriptor was needed. Did it need to be Asian? Of course not. Was it perhaps the easiest word to use? Maybe. It would be odd to point out her hair color and not use such descriptions elsewhere. Besides, it adds emphasis to the demeaning “honey” line the cashier threw back at her – was the presumably white (it is New England) cashier acting demeaning toward her because she was Asian? I sort of thought so.

That said, I think it’s entirely fair to note these particulars in a piece within a safe forum.

Thanks for a great piece, Steve.

Thank you for this piece, Steve Almond. I can see those black mountains from the window of my own plane.

Thank you, Mr. Almond for being a word bearer.