Minnesota

We spent a long weekend laying my father-in-law to rest in Minnesota. This was the prairie part of Minnesota, not the woodsy lakes part of Minnesota.

It was bittersweet, as this kind of thing always is. Maybe moreso because this is my first return to the prairie since 2015, and it wasn’t even MY prairie. This trip was to have been a grand tour across my and Jenny’s shared heartlands but it got whittled down a lot (we are so busybusybusy). But still: humidity, corn fields, chocolate malts at the drive-in, thunderstorms, the old-school steakhouse, small town swimming pool, small town bowling alley, lots of driving.

Glad my left-coast kids got to experience fireflies and that they were not disappointed. (It was a LOT of fireflies).

The day of my father-in-law’s interment felt like a twenty-four-hour exhalation. He died last fall and we have waited so long to close this circle. It was good to be in a place so near to his soul, and to Jenny’s roots.