She kept her hair long
even into her nineties,
like curtains parted
around the rambunctious
stage of her face.
While her body grew thin
and curled inward
“like a pistachio shell,”
her eyes never aged
and she laughed often,
loud and deep
as though her joy started
way down inside her.
We knew she was dying
because she told us,
and then she winked,
which is what she always did
when she said grown-up things.
She gave all the kids
trinkets that week,
little objects from her home,
and she told us stories about them,
like mine, a little tin box,
that she said was magic
and could fit all my memories.
I told her I’d put this memory in straight away,
and I tried not to cry,
and then she whispered,
with her eyes wide and sparkly,
“As long as one person remembers you,
it’s not over,”
and so many years later,
as I go back to that tin box
for her wisdom,
I realize she was right.