The last thing I did for my mother was illegal

An urn cost more than my rent.

So I scattered my mother’s ashes at Yosemite from a Ziploc bag, without the federal permit I couldn’t afford to wait for My mother is in a Ziploc bag on my lap, wedged between a half-eaten bag of trail mix and my purse.

My stomach is queasy from the switchbacks up to Yosemite, where I’ve come to spread her ashes, and I’m having an existential crisis.

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