I miss her house, which was once my house. I miss seeing her in her chair through the window. The reading lamp above her could be seen from the street. On winter nights, a glow so amber, against a backdrop of ebony. A sight like the feeling of holding a warm mug up to cold skin, steam softening cheeks left stinging from the air. I miss eating soup at a perfectly set table. Dessert served in cocktail glasses. I miss her hands, and the way she’d take mine in hers every time I walked through the door. I have memories from when we lived there, pushing the coffee table against the window. Still little enough to climb on top, we’d sit and we’d watch,

warming our feet against the vent in the floor.

When moving became harder to do, she’d use her walker, and patiently walk the loop around the living room, through the kitchen, down the hall. On a Friday in spring, she sat in her chair, I sat opposite sipping tea, she recalled her memories of Joe and I— “only up to my waist”— running the same loop after bath time. Leaving a trail of tiny, wet, footsteps. She said it was as if she was chasing us still, like our giggles could be heard, echoing behind her.

Do images of spaces ever make you want to cry? All my senses, in sync, surrendering to a memory. Did I see it just as beautiful when the moment still knew motion? Or would it feel far less perfect, if not paused in eternal peace?

A family lives there now. They keep every plant of hers alive. Bring us plates of food, just to be kind. They dance by night, I can hear the music, sometimes the laughter too. My grandma loved to dance, they tell me they feel her in the house, most of all under the moon. The garden was twice as big this year, they swear her love is in the soil— “that’s why the flowers are happy to grow.” And the rows of pink pansies, tell me it’s so. When they fill the kitchen, after sunset, I could mistake the light for her lamp left on; asleep in its glow, how could I forget?