In Memory of My Grandmother

Stephany struggled to put the memorial flowers in the back of the rental as the rain poured down heavily around her. She couldn’t leave that place without taking something with her because soon they would shut the lid to her grandmother’s casket. She wondered what would happen to the flowers and grew angry at the thought of leaving them behind.

They should come home, she thought.

She grabbed them and didn’t care if her family protested. Who cares if the trunk of the rental got dirty?

Though the flowers died soon after, at least Stephany felt comforted. When everyone left, she opened the dresser in the backroom, and grabbed the gift with her name on it, with shaking hands and tears dripping down her face, she opened the gift it was a Moleskine journal, a little black book, to think it was the last thing her grandmother had wrapped that day, only three days before Christmas.

Her mom had come upstairs her voice trembling, “They’ve taken Abuelita to the hospital”.

Stephany and her mother anxiously waited for their neighbor to drive them to the hospital in Carolina since they did not have a car.

They entered the hospital and the seconds seemed like days waiting for news, and only one person could go in, soon she heard the most excruciating sound, the sound of a broken heart. And it could only mean one thing. Her grandmother was gone.

The book was brand new and Stephany tried not to wet the paper with her tears. She flipped through the pages and noticed a small white envelope. She opened it and inside was a lotto ticket. She laughed, she had told her grandmother she wanted to move back to Texas, and her grandmother had bought her a ticket in hopes that she would win.

“I really want to be a writer Abuelita,” she told her grandmother,” Pero necessito una computadora.”

Her grandmother reached in her yellow wallet and pulled out a $5 bill and told her to buy 2 lotto tickets, but both of the tickets were not winners.

Stephany’s writing wasn’t neat, and she often struggled to read her handwriting and was trying to find a job so she could save up for a laptop.

She took the ticket to the gas station and the machine said winner, she would have to go collect it. She was so excited. She could finally write her story.

Stephany and her mom took an uber to the lotto collection place. They wrote her a check that day for twenty thousand dollars.

She found a flight for March 30th and bought two tickets one for her and her mom. She packed and cleaned up her grandmother’s house. Sent some things ahead to her sister’s place.

She wrote the first part of her story carefully and as neatly as she could in her Moleskine journal. But a few tears blurred the black ink on the page. Soaking through a couple of pages.

“I miss you,” she said aloud.

Though the win had temporarily taken Stephany’s mind off her grandmother's passing, all the thoughts and feelings came on to her suddenly and violently. She tried to take in a breath, but all she could do was cry.

Clutching the little black book to her chest, she curled up on her bed. Her head and heart pounding. She hoped that the days would soon pass by, hoping that it was true that time healed all wounds, but each day the little black book served as a reminder of her grandmother's love and of the empty space she had left behind.