For a lifetime

I stared at the suitcase, a puzzle of colours

I’m torn between pink and green.

I’m searching for a way to carry my grief

without disappearing into it.

I choose orange, the color of sunset,

a small defiance against the air of a world that felt 

suddenly thin,

like the pale, empty, hospital corridors.

I remember the way you’d take my pages into your hands.

No grand speeches, no long reviews.

Just one word. Sometimes two.

Heavy, steady words that settled in the room like stones in a stream.

His syllables were anchors in my life,

my moral compass.

My mind races back to when the line was drawn.

The tradition said, stand back, stay behind the veil.

Just for a moment, my orange fabric felt like a shared secret.

I watched the gold light shift and burn through the threads,

practicing the way you used to, steady and unhurried.

The world feels like a buzzing static,

I embrace the silence where you never faltered.

Folding my grief like my suitcase of memories,

I’m proud to be your granddaughter.