When I bought that record player I had been wanting for years, she gave me all her vintage vinyls. Insisting that I have them, she told me they haven’t been played in years. Told me to be careful with them, to play them often and to listen closely. And, much like her memory, the old records were worn and scratched and dusty. A beat would skip, missing a piece of the melody, forgetting how the pretty symphony plays. Or the record would repeat over, and over, and over that one lyric I had never paid much attention to. I should pay attention to. Much like the record, she is aged, fragile and weak. And much like the record I listen to every word she speaks, every though, every story, every memory she has left with her. And when she remembers, and asks, “Do you still have my record?” I nod, smile, and say, “I listen every day.”