“Please, grandpa! Tell us one more time!” Anna and Timothy excitedly kicked their feet.

“Alright, alright. Settle down. I’ll only tell it to you one more time, so you better be listening.” I responded.

With every passing tick of the clock, my memory of her never fades. My love never seems to dwindle, only grow stronger as time goes on.

“We’re all ears, grandpa!” Little Anna and Timothy cup their hand behind their ears, and turn to face me in their beds.

“Well, it all started on a cold, dark, and depressing afternoon.” I stop abruptly to give it the dramatic effect.

“I was on my way home after serving in the Vietnam War. I had gotten a one way ticket home back to my little hometown. Once I arrived, I went straight to my house to surprise my parents. Only, they weren’t there. No one was. There was a for sale sign.” I continued.

Anna and Timothy gasp.

“I asked everyone around town what happened to them. But I asked multiple people because I wasn’t sure I believed them. However, everyone said the same thing: m-my parents had died in a car crash.”

I look up for a moment, smiling at the best parents in the whole world. “I didn’t have any other family members so I was forced to live outside for a while. A few months later after I got home, I wanted to stop by my old house. But when I got there, the for sale sign was gone, and someone was already moving in.”

I look at the pictures of her on the mantle and smile. Little Anna has her ears. Timothy has her eyes.

“There was a girl there—a few years younger than me. I would watch her plant things in the garden everyday on my way to work. Myriads of peonies and roses, daffodils, tulips, poppies, and so much more laid out in the front lawn. And one day, while I was on my way to work on my bike, I was too distracted from watching her, that I got hit by a car right in front of that house.”

A worried expression crosses of Timothy’s face.

I scratch my beard.

“I suffered minor injuries, but healed up really quick because of your grandmothers herbs and medicines. She fixed up my wounds, and she let me stay at her house—which used to be mine but is now mine again and the house that we are in as we speak. I was still living outside at the time. Those first few weeks that we lived together, we already became inseparable. Weeks turned into months, months turned into years, years turned into decades. And everyday I continue loving her. I’ll continue loving her every second, even when I’m gone one day.”

Huge grins form on Anna and Timothy’s face as they jump out of bed and tackle me with a huge hug.