In one split moment, my mother had sliced open grief right in front of me, an afternoon snack she called it. She sprinkled it with salt and pepper, plating it beside the apples that were going bad. We sat on the couch, the plate between us. Someday you’ll remember me, someday you will remember the taste of peculiar things. Like the burn of the pepper when it’s paired with something sweet and ****, and you will sit in that feeling, she warned, as I am today. I ask her to tell me something interesting, to which she would laugh and say, you’re the one who leaves every day, you must have something better to share than I do. All I had was something about walking the lines of the world, with my head down. I don’t have much to fill our silences with, except that I take her soft hands, and in them are stories, many pasts, many feelings, and I hold them. Someday you’ll remember me, and on that day, you’ll split open grief, pour it into your glass of half empty and half full, burning through the day, with the taste of pepper on your tongue.