Scene from "October 24th, 1928"

            She remembers her name.  She remembers the war.  She remembers her birthday.  She remembers the recipe for her famous egg drop soup.  She remembers the house she grew up in.  The one in the back of Palolo valley next to the 76 gas station.  She remembers the orchids and cherry tomatoes she used to tend with her brother in the backyard.  She remembers the sausage dog that lived with them who rolled on a skateboard, too fat to walk.  She remembers her niece, two years young and her mother had just passed away—but she does not remember that niece’s name.  She remembers the name of the man she did not marry—Gregory Peck—and how he was such a handsome looker.

            The hallways smell of processed turkey and old linens.  Wheelchairs full of missing limbs and sad eyes line the walls.  I know none of their stories, but I know they are all waiting; waiting for either more time or less.  We reach room 224 on the second floor, Lewalani Wing.  She is sitting on her bed, fussing with a wrinkled paper napkin, brittle from being folded and unfolded hundreds of times.  Her prepared meal waits on the side, untouched as always.  We each hug her frail outline and kiss the sunken cheeks of her thinning face.  I smooth back her now white frazzled hair and Katie wipes the dried soup drizzle off her shirt.  “Hi Aunty Sue! How have you been?” mom asks.  Aunty looks up at her and her eyes widen and she shoots us a light, pleasant smile.  Mom always starts tearing up at this point, and so do my sister and I.  Only we know her well enough to recognize that look on her face; the look that she only gives to strangers.