Kindling for Grief

They Greeted us every Christmas with plastic pecks to the cheek. {We were just two sticks of kindling for their forever grief). They'd fuss over brother. who'd the haunting eyes of mother... I was just the little hand on their time piece. The adults would sit around fanning lukewarm talk for hours. While we wandered out back kicking bits of this and tossing bits of that into a black puddle that once glittered with goldfish...