Isabella Estrada

Storer
English 3 Honors Block 4
26 March 2020
Alice Guerra
She carried her small, black medicine container with her in her purse. It had a beautiful
design sketch of an English woman wearing an afternoon dress with a trench coat and a large white
hat. She received it as a gift from her best friend, Marie, the first time she went to England to visit
her. She only carries about two pills in the container because most of her pills stay in her bathroom.
Even though it is about twenty years later and does not see much use, and she continues to use it.
She carried her small coin purse to hold her change that she would use for the laundry. It had
to be more than 10 years old because my brother bought it for her from one of the Christmas bazaars
that we had at our elementary school. It was the type of bazaar where everything thing was priced
under twenty dollars, so the kids were able to pay with the little money they had. It was worth less
than three dollars and about the size of her palm with an intricate floral pattern of green, pink, and
black colors. Every time she would come over, she would turn to my brother and smile saying,
“You’ll never guess who bought me this coin purse.”
She carried her vibrant pink Hawaiian lei on the rearview mirror of her car. Now that it is
roughly ten years old, it has received enough sun to turn to an off shade of pink. My cousin gave it to
her when he was ten at his fifth-grade graduation ceremony. Everyone was given a cheap lei that was
bought from the dollar store and he decided to give it to her to say thank you for coming to his
graduation. She decided to put it on her rearview mirror to identify her car from all the others. She
always said she wanted to prepare for when she got older and started losing her mind. Whenever we
go with her to breakfast or help her get groceries, she mentions the story of the lei and we still make
fun of my cousin for it.
She carried her regret. Once my nana finally retired from her job, she started to travel all over
the world. She has been to all sorts of places: Georgia, New York City, Paris, Venice, Ireland, and
most importantly London which was her favorite place in the whole world. In 2016, she decided she
wanted to make a last big trip to Machu Picchu but she discovered that due to her age, the change in
altitude in Peru was going to be an issue for her health so she would never be able to go. She stopped
traveling, even on day trips, after hearing this news.
She carried her guilt. When I was twelve, we received news that my Tia Marie had passed
away. My nana was planning to visit her just a couple of months later. She was never able to say
goodbye to her and would never fully move on from that. We tend not to bring up the subject
anymore at dinners because she always gets quiet.
She carried her anxiety. In the past couple of years, she has gotten more conscious of how
much time she has left on this Earth. She always likes to make jokes about it, but I know that there is
a scary truth behind the jokes. All the mementos that she has kept help her to battle this fear but
above all the material things, the past love behind those objects is what allows her to live in the
present. Whenever I talk to her about my detailed timeline for the future, she says, “You can’t plan
that far ahead Bella. You don’t even know if you’ll be here tomorrow so just try to live as much as
you can right now.”