2024 Touchstone Award Winner for Individual Haibun – Peg Cherrin-Myers

Peg Cherrin-Myers is the recipient of a Touchstone Award for Individual Haibun for 2024 for this haibun:

I always imagine when I take my mother’s ashes out of the armoire, I will be ugly-crying with snot, tears and guilt all over my face and hands.

I remove the engraved cherrywood box that holds our cat’s ashes to get to my mother’s. I don’t remember what hers looks like, how it’s still in the white postal envelope from Indiana with large orange stickers on all four sides that read “Cremated Remains” in bold print. The weight catches me off guard,

and I say, “Damn, Mom, you’re really heavy!”  There I am, holding my mom and laughing.  I’m in such a good mood I even throw the cat’s box  into my backpack for our trip. I’m so happy  to show her my Ram Longhorn and have her listen  to all my favorite honky-tonks.

Whenever I turn onto a street, I stretch out my right arm to keep the pack from sliding as if  she’s sitting there, and once I realize what I’m doing,  I pull over and buckle her in.

At the trailhead, I tell her I’ve inherited  her inability to get lost on trails. How  someone could spin me in circles,  and I’d still be able to feel her  compass in me pointing north. The first pond

we come up on sounds like a frog orgy, and I say,  “Mom, these are frogs,” and she says, “Peggy Sue,  I know what frogs sound like. I’m not deaf.” And I say,  “Oh, I didn’t know the dead could hear.” And that’s how  most of our hike went: me pointing out trees I’ve named  Little Miss Giraffe, Cup Holder, Slingshot, and her smart-ass comments that I catch mid-air in my fist and

swallow. At one point, she complains about an odor,  and I say I don’t know what that is, but it smells like something has died, and I think how ironic she be complaining about the dead smelling bad.

Nearing the finish of our hike, we hear sirens off in the distance that remind her of the life sentence I’ve given myself, and she says, “Please don’t kill yourself,” and I say, “Did you?”

 

—Peg Cherrin-Myers, Contemporary Haibun Online, Issue 20.1

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Commentary from the Panel: 

There is much to enjoy in this unusual haibun, which encourages re-reading to tease out its different levels. The story takes the form of an internal monologue related by Peggy Sue as she embarks on a road trip to inter or scatter her mother’s ashes. From Peggy Sue’s musings, in which she relates both her own comments and her mother’s ripostes, we learn very early in the piece that daughter and mother had a fraught relationship. The sly humor and gently ironic tone of the prose reflect the title “Midwest Nice,” which, according to the Urban Dictionary, is “a manner of non-confrontationally addressing a situation that is somehow annoying but in a passive-aggressive manner that is subtle enough to be considered friendly.” The prose is straightforward and rollicks along, as if we too are accompanying Peggy Sue and her late mother.

We learn in the first stanza that whatever happened between mother and daughter has weighed upon Peggy Sue ever since her mother’s death. While the family cat’s remains lie in a fancy engraved box, the mother’s neglected ashes are still in the postal envelope they were sent in from the funeral home. Peggy Sue has locked away her mother’s memory as well as her ashes in places rarely visited – the back of a cupboard shelf and back-of-mind forgetfulness.  However, guilt about her mother continues to color (even torture) the daughter’s thoughts when she thinks about the ashes – “I always imagine . . . I will be ugly-crying.” It seems there may be some history in the family that has led to the mother’s death, and Peggy Sue is caught in a web of bewilderment and unanswered (likely unanswerable) questions.

That Peggy Sue cared for her mother is made very clear from the outset of the road trip. She is solicitous for her mother’s welfare, just as if she were sitting beside her in reality – “I pull over and buckle her in.” As the narrative unfolds further, Peggy Sue’s mood in her imaginary interaction with her dead mother seesaws from good-natured intimate sharing to somewhat exasperated bickering about what she opines her mother would answer. This is conveyed vividly in the prose – “her smart-ass comments that I catch mid-air in my fist and swallow.” The penultimate stanza provides us with an inkling of past filial neglect which may underlie Peggy Sue’s guilt about her mother – “I think how ironic she be complaining about the dead smelling bad.” The concluding stanza also holds the third line of the haiku, “finish the sentence,” and it is then we learn what has troubled Peggy Sue all along – wondering how her mother died.

The interwoven haiku underpins the narrative with its overtones of guilt and uncertainty. Suicide is a difficult topic. It may be concealed as a family secret and never spoken of, especially if there is some doubt about the means and timing. This haibun with its questioning last words lays that issue bare, with an unanswerable question that is full of heartbreak.