I did not inherit any wealth or real estate, or property. Nothing legal. Nothing that needed signing.
What I inherited was her voice.
Same slightly nasal sound. Same louder-than-it-should-be laugh.
She used hers to crack jokes, tell dirty limericks, start trouble, end dinners late.
I use mine to talk out loud to my plants, to narrate the garden, to make the cats feel included, to fill the quiet when it gets too wide. When she died, the voice didn’t go with her. It stayed. In my throat. In my laugh. In the way I speak before I think.
I miss her. But when I open my mouth,
she’s still here— not as memory, but as sound.
Winter 2026
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