When I was a child, there was always a jar of candy in the living room. Nana would wash the candy paper we had eaten before and fold it into a paper flower. We would hang it by the window and watch it fly gently with the wind. It was a sweet memory for me, but for nana, it was more like a memorial.

During the 2020 lockdown in Hubei, we moved to nana's house to take care of each other, and I shared a room with her. Living together day and night, our disagreement about any trivial matter could be the trigger for a big fight. I tried to understand each other through conversation, and it was the first time nana talked about Zhenyuan, the name she had lost, and the faded memories of family. The conversation always ended in her tears and I gradually realized that though we lived in the same room, we were facing completely different worlds: Zhenyuan had never disappeared, and she had left my meemaw there forever.

She may forget all the bad memories one day, however the effects it had caused will stay and last. Like a wound without a scar, the memory faded and the pain remained.