You lean into her hospital bed to give her a kiss for the last time, her lungs filling up with water by the millisecond. The woman in the bed next to her is wailing out to no one in particular, lost in her own madness. Your grandmother bristles for a second and between labored breaths says, ‘sure, I wouldn’t be in here a’tall if I had her lung power.”
When you open your suitcase in your bedroom after making the trip home from her house, you will find packets of ketchup in your shirt collar, pants pocket, and medicine bag.
You will take that 1 liter ketchup bottle into every apartment or house that you will call home from now on, the red container producing a smile each time you look at it. It makes you think back on the life of an amazing woman and provides a past connection of your own sly sense of humor and the obsession with always getting the last word.