I found a crumpled hospital parking validation ticket tucked inside my grandmother's old seed packet.
The petunias were hers. I remembered the deep purple ones she planted every spring.
She used to play gin rummy every Thursday with her circle. I'd hear their laughter through the kitchen door.
Now she's in a room overlooking a parking lot. She doesn't remember the card games anymore.
I bought soil and started replanting her garden from memory — the rows of marigolds, the climbing roses.
Last Sunday, I brought a pot of petunias to her window. She stared for a long time, then said, 'Those are too purple.'
It was the most herself she'd sounded in months.