Pressed

These are the flowers I picked with my grandmother when I was 3 years old.

It was 1987. We picked some wildflowers from beside the road as we walked and chose cultivated varieties from her garden. Then, she showed me how to press them between pages of newsprint in her flower press.

If she hadn’t, the petals would have disintegrated long ago. I probably wouldn’t even remember them.

As it is, I can still see their colors. I remember what she said as we walked. I remember the way she knel...