Page 112 of Good Dirt

Soh

B efore leaving the new Edward Basil Freeman Gallery, Soh takes one last look at the jar. It is surrounded by admirers. When Soh first saw Old Mo sitting on the large, squat pedestal in the museum, she stepped up to it and ran her hand along one of the seams where the jar had been repaired. She drew close to the vessel with her nose and breathed in. Soh loved thinking that in the beginning, when it was just a mound of clay, Old Mo could have been anything at all, until that critical moment when it was placed in the kiln and heated to more than two thousand degrees Fahrenheit.

In the beginning, Old Mo had been full of possibility, just like a person. Even in its final form, the jar has continued to transform people’s lives, just as they, in turn, are leaving their mark on the life story of Old Mo. Soh loves that jar more than ever. She loves to think that something that has been broken can be pieced back together.

“So long, Old Mo,” Soh whispers as she walks away. She stops outside the entrance to the hall, where her son’s name is fixed to the wall in raised bronze lettering. She reaches up to run her fingers across the Basil , then steps back. She stands there, breathing in and out, for how long, she doesn’t know. There are no words for this moment.

There are no words to capture the meaning of a person’s life.