(wistful horn music)
- My grandmother's mind
was a ballroom.
Inside were her memories,
each memory dressed for a celebration.
That memory there,
in the white blazer on the dance floor,
is the memory of her wedding day.
He never stops dancing.
That memory there in the long, purple dress,
staring out the window,
the day my father left for college.
That memory there, slumped over his food,
the day she got her first cavity filled.
My grandmother's ballroom,
always in motion.
(wistful horn music)
My grandmother liked to tell stories.
"Philip,
remember the time you and I made strawberry jam?"
I pretend I don't,
so that she'll tell me again.
"Well, you were eight years old."
Inside my grandmother's ballroom,
a woman in a red dress clears her throat,
carefully kisses fork to wine glass,
tells a story of a boy and his grandmother,
how they picked out the reddest strawberries in the store,
how they made so much jam,
they ate until it was summer again,
each time the boy thinking,
my Nama and I made this.
(wistful horn music)
It happened slowly at first.
There are things you can forget
and no one notices.
"Philip, where did we park the car?"
"What was the soup of the day again?"
"I thought the movie started at eight."
Inside my grandmother's ballroom,
jubilant chaos,
her memories drunk on a wine
they had never tasted before,
a cancer no one understood.
"Philip, what's your father's phone number?"
"We went to Hawaii together?"
(dissonant horn music)
"It's your birthday?"
Her memories slurring their words,
lifting their glasses for more,
staggering across the dance floor.
(music fades out)
"What day is this?"
"Why am I in the hospital?"
"Where is my hair?"
The last time I got to see her,
she could not speak, eyes closed.
"Nama, it's me, Phil.
Remember the time you and I made strawberry jam?
No? Well, let me tell you."
And my grandmother, quietly in bed,
squeezes my hand.
Somewhere, a woman in a red dress,
feet blistered,
still dancing,
taken by the music.
(mournful horn music)
(audience applauds)
Thank y'all very much, thank you.
(audience cheering)