Kendrick Olson:  

Martha My mom gave me space to fly. When I was a sturdy little boy of three and four my mom would take me to the grocery store in Tennessee where she would fasten my cape around my shoulders. I would test the drape and flow of the cape with the whisk of my fingertips, and then I would take off running down the aisles, stopping at the ends with arms akimbo. I imagine I was looking for souls in distress—in readiness to rescue and protect. At the memorial service for my mom this past week the leitmotif of the music and hymns, and the readings and the speeches (from son and daughter and granddaughter and chaplain), focused on this image of a graceful and loving and beautiful bird taking flight and soaring through the skies. Months and months in anticipation of our family having a memorial service, with thoughts even a few days before it was scheduled that it might suddenly be postponed again, I had rehearsed divers remembrances in stories and anecdotes—even summoning the wisdom of my favorite writer Samuel Beckett with the possibility of reading a passage of his work—and what I finally came up with was a concise story (the just of it here rendered) to be followed by an impassioned readin...Expand for more