I remember Grandma.

It was cold when they called me out of class. Wrapped me in a coat. Sent me to the car. The one I was riding in, with its engine perpetually moving me forward, when I learned that you would never move again. My heart stilled, frozen as the world passed in a blur around me.

Blame stood in every corner of the room that day. It roared and vibrated its chords in the throat. It rolled, wet and slippery off the cliff of every tongue and pointed, like a spear, from the end of so many fingertips.

But my heart knew nothing of blame- all of us guilty - knowing that we wash our hands with “I’m sorry.” - try to keep them clean - yet, in the end, we are all the blame for something. Leaving our dirty little handprints on each other sticky with the residue of hurt.

In my imagination I sit on the porch where they found your body while the world screams blame around us - I hold your hands clutched to your chest where you burst and tore apart (a heart attack they called it)- life having already left from behind your terror stricken eyes - and listen as all of the pressure this world has pressed inside of you releases.

In the end, blame is inconsequential. Shivering more from this quake of emotion inside of me then the cold - I close your eyes. - and let the blame fall like the snow, a blanket around us.