I think first of the children. What the hell am I supposed to tell them? Then I think about money, the house, all those things no widow will tell you ever crossed her mind.

Mama wasn't dead...exactly. They all said she was, but when Elma was small, she seen Mama creep into her room at night, half-naked, head all bloodied red like when they found her by the well that day, and Elma reckoned dead just meant pretendin' you couldn't move or breathe until nightfall when you got up and walked around like you was free.

The heaviness of loss in her heart hadn't eased, but there was room there for humour, too.

Death is as casual-and often as unexpected-as birth. It is as difficult to define grief as joy. Each is finite. Each will fade.

Done to death by slanderous tongues

Death without dread of death is welcome death