Memories

I’ll never forget the kitchen with the drooling wafts of bashful morning sun dribbling through the yawning window.
I’ll never forget the kitchen with the tumbles of Shanghai breath painting the air awash in a dreamy technicolor perfume.
I’ll never forget the kitchen with the motley medley of crayon masterpieces, clumsy origami, and pottery mutants made with the silly giggles of childhood glee.
I’ll never forget the kitchen with the wire cage perched unassumingly in the corner, housing an unpretentious, little yellow resident.
I’ll never forget the little old lady who completed the scene, alighted on the windowsill, demonstrating to my older sister how to hang clothes onto the clothesline.
I’ll never forget her willowy fingers, carved with blueprints of age and time, as she gently guided my sister’s chubby hand over the colorful clips.
I’ll never forget her smile, a sweet, tilted curve budding on her face, with traces and dances of amusement wisping around her eyes.
I’ll never forget the candied bird song flitting around the kitchen, crystallizing the moment into pellucid forever.
I’ll never forget, as I watch Grandma slip into the painted sky, her soul fluttering among the cascades and rivulets and wings of moonlight and clouds and stars.

Jasmin Wu is currently attending Walter Johnson High School as a sophomore. She was one of the 12 finalists of the Gaithersburg Book Festival.

Image: Wok to Walk International, S.L., CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons