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I sat on the cedar chest at the end of Aunt Florentine’s bed and tried to stop crying, but my tears kept coming, salty and fat and full of feeling.

My own Tlingit ancestors used decorative cedar chests, like one in the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to store regalia used in religious ceremonies.

There, at the back, was the large cedar chest.

Run my hand across the cedar chest’s smooth, polished surface.

They narrowed their essentials to the things that really matter: a cedar chest inside the entry that Chris’ grandfather made for his mom when he was in high school.