When I first noticed the violet flower by the broken sidewalk, I didn't think much of it. It stood alone, near the edge of the road that leads to the park, growing stubbornly between dry dirt and shattered concrete. Something about its quiet presence made me stop. That flower has no business surviving there, and yet it does. Maybe that’s why it reminds me of her. Because just like that bloom, my grandmother exists now in a different kind of strength, one that doesn’t shout but still insists on being seen.
Before, the park was where she laughed. It was her space as much as it was mine. She used to walk me there when I was a child, one hand holding mine, the other swinging free with a rhythm only she had. There was a bench she claimed like it had her name carved into it, though it never did. I still see her there when I close my eyes, back straight, eyes sharp, correcting my posture with a single look. That place holds her imprint, even now that she can no longer reach it. I walk there without her, but I feel her every time my steps fall into old patterns.
Lately, her presence has started to feel softer, as though the edges of her voice have blurred. She still lives with us, still breathes and hums sometimes, but the weight of her movements has changed. She stays indoors mostly. She no longer talks about the park. Her body, once so certain, now hesitates. I carry the silence of those changes in my chest. It’s not that I miss the past. It’s that the present feels like a slow undoing, and I don’t know how to hold that gently.
Taking pictures of the flower, of the street, of the park, has become a quiet habit. Not to document, not even to remember. Just to cope. I take them when I walk alone. I stop at the gate and wait, pretending to listen to traffic when I’m actually listening to memories. I used to think of that park as a childhood space, but now it feels like a bridge. A place where I used to meet her, and maybe still do, even if her body no longer follows. She gave it meaning. Now I give it back to her, in every step.
Nothing about this moment is clear or grand. I don’t know how to name the emotion of watching someone slowly retreat from the world they once shaped. So I walk. Not because it fixes anything, but because it allows me to feel close to her in ways I can’t explain. That flower, that street, that park—they are not symbols. They are real. They exist where she once led, and where I now follow, quietly, hoping that presence doesn’t always require movement. That maybe love is sometimes just staying near, even when the other no longer can.
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
