My Name

June.

Today I am fourteen and my grandmother squeezes my arm in a death grip. That’s impressive for seventy three. She’s up visiting for my sister’s birthday tomorrow. Such a gorgeous name you have, she tells me. It means “Ireland” in Gaelic. She tells me this every time she sees me, reminds me of where I came from.

Your great grandparents came over on the boat, every single one. And my mother, she had such an Irish brogue…

When she gets lost on memory lane I don’t force her back. I like hearing the stories sometimes, when I’m in the right mood. I can sort of imagine her, my grandmother, with her flaming red hair dye and the violet veins that bulge from her hands and arms and wrists. I can sort of imagine just her, wandering in a garden of purple, and those green Irish hills she always tells us about. I can see her fingering every flower petal as she goes, growing frailer but never older, speaking to the gentle breeze about the chocolate chip cookies she made just special for her oldest son and her oldest granddaughter.