Sometimes a little absurdity is just what you need when you’re grieving

first person

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We buried him before a tree on a hill, spring heat blazing down. A rock bore his name, which I had scrawled in permanent marker. Alvin. Yes, like the singing chipmunk. We voted on what to call him and democracy doesn’t always breed originality.

Alvin wasn’t an ordinary rodent. His tastes were refined, perhaps more so than those of the children who had gathered that afternoon on the wooden porch prior to his burial. He listened to Metallica, read Nietzsche and fathered 12 children. Alvin was a family man. He was a good chipmunk, by any measure.

His favorite song – Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl – seemed almost too simple, too gentle for a