She also cried as a newborn, and felt light shine through her eyes. Her favourite colour was ocean. Her lungs moved with the tides.

On Fridays, she'd make bread with her dad. Four floury hands. Two smiles, soft and wide. It was a ritual they’d complete each week, between prayers, and stories, and feasting. Sometimes, she’d take a ball of dough and eat it raw.

On Saturdays, she'd dance among ancient trees, who were too sage to take any side. This is where Alma would find freedom, with swirling scents of cedar, thyme, and pine. Below, gnarled roots met her feet, above buds and branches met her moves. Sometimes, she’d sing a song, made up on the spot.

On Sunday, Alma died, due to a paradox and plague: 'Holy war' they call it – this vain game of trying to claim the sacred. The stars, and those paying attention, saw that in the flash of the explosion, everyone's heaven was lit bright, just the same.

The ripples are still rippling. Mother is weeping salty tears. This is an old story, and fresh. Over the kitchen table and cups of chamomile tea, she asks tired and patient questions to nobody and to me. Questions about peace and breathing bodies at ease, and why we keep killing and reducing each other to less than tender, and place each other further than intimate, when all are babes here, fleshy and intricate.

I don't know what to say. Between us, a small red vase holds lavender heads, who are listening better than I can. Few words pass over this tongue. We light nine candles.

Grandmother arrives to embrace us. She's vast and fluent like sea, wrapped in whites and greens. We sit so close, I feel the ebbs and flows as she breathes, these waves soothe and anchor. Her fingers create familiar rhythms, around a string of beads. In their silent tempo, I think I hear a gentle and cautious reprieve: ‘Take shelter here, beloved. They know not what they do’.

Meanwhile, orange blossoms keep revealing themselves, and today the sky is blue.