The urn in my arms was shockingly light.
Yet it felt so heavy, like it was crushing half a lifetime of all I had ever loved and lost right into my bones.
Nora's ashes rested inside a small, plain white porcelain jar.
Etched across the front was the wonky, lopsided sun she had drawn herself.
She had spent an entire afternoon hunched over the dining table working on it for her birthday last year, telling me it was a present for Mom and Dad.
I did not go back to any place that used to feel like home.
Instead, I bought a random train ticket to a small, quiet town down south.
I found a tiny ground-floor apartment in the old town and moved in.
The house was old, with flaking, patchy wall paint, but it came with a tiny little yard.
I cut off every tie to my old life and got a brand new p
