Hillbilly Elegy

Mom and Mamaw sobbed
uncontrollably as we waited for an
ambulance. I tried to hug Mamaw, but
she was beside herself and unresponsive
even to me. When she stopped crying,
she clutched me to her chest and told me
to go say goodbye before they took his
body away. I tried, but the medical
technician kneeling beside him gazed at
me as if she thought I was creepy for
wanting to look at a dead body. I didn’t
tell her the real reason I had walked
back to my slouching Papaw.
After the ambulance took Papaw’s
body away, we drove immediately to
Aunt Wee’s house. I guessed Mom had
called her, because she descended from