Praniya Jakkamsetti

“From dust we came, and to dust we shall return,” she whispered to me. Her face brightened up her compact 80-square-foot room. I held her hand, decorated with jewels from all around the world. She had just been transferred here from another memory care facility, and I’d decided to sit down with her every Sunday. Stacked in her lap were a Bible, a devotional book, and a journal. “What do you write in there?” I asked, pointing to the beaded journal.