Christmas eve: snow!

Christmas eve dinner was at my sister-in-law's this year. I drove to this part of Quebec where my brother and I grew up, and stopped by the cemetery. I needed a minute alone with my brother, before going to his house and seeing his son, his widow, her boyfriend, our father. Ours as become a strange family, but it seems this strangeness is exactly what makes it work: with grief came a closeness between my sister-in-law, nephew, mother, stepdad and myself, a closeness that endures now and helps us deal with whatever happens.

The cemetery is a lonely place, of course, mostly because it is on a road, with fields surrounding it. But there, as I again reflected on the fact that this block of stone doesn't remind me much of my brother, I heard birds, geese flying to the south. There were really late, it was about -15 C, and they seemed a bit disorganized: I counted five flocks, and they tended to fly in a disorderly fashion. They comforted me, though, as if I could trust my own confusions as long as nature managed to deal with climate changes.

Then, it was the pleasure of good food, my nephew excited about Christmas, exchanging gifts.