The way I fold a body into a casket

I don’t talk about it much, but today I folded a man’s arms across his chest—just like his mother used to do when he was small. The bones were brittle, the skin thin as paper. I didn’t think about grief. I thought about how, in that moment, his hands were no longer reaching for anything. Just resting. And for a second, I wasn’t a mortician. I was someone who knew what stillness looked like when it was given dignity.