“Among My Souvenirs”
Laura Hall

The evidence included in this installation was accumulated over the weekend of June 9, 2000 during a trip taken to Columbus, Ohio in the event of my grandma's death and funeral service.

Over the past year I have been collecting her words, her stories with the intention of being able to pass them down to my children and grandchildren.

I emphasized her obituary by covering all of the other names on the page with leaves from one of her rose bushes. When I was a child I spent many summers tending my grandmother's roses. When Grandma moved out of her house five years ago, I transplanted all of her roses into my mother's garden. There are only two now surviving, one of which is the pink Queen Elizabeth, her favorite. I brought roses cut from the pink Queen Elizabeth to her wake. The leaves and single tiny pink bud on the obituary came from those roses.

The piece of cream colored paint came from her balcony. When Grandma was well she spent most of her time out on the balcony of her apartment watching the birds, talking to the birds, feeding the birds. The piece of bark came from the beech tree outside of the funeral home; the dried roses and live ivy came from the floral spray on her casket.

Notes to myself are included that were torn from my journal and planner because I referred to them when I spoke at her funeral. I spoke of memories that I had shared with Grandma, and the unconditional love that she had for all of her children and grandchildren no matter what wrong they had done. Grandma was always home and she always had time for us. She gave until she had nothing left to give.

In the end, I spent as much time as I could when I went home, listening to her stories with more patience than ever. She held odd hours then and would usually talk well into one or two in the morning. She began to sing this song and couldn't quite put her finger on all of the words, "Among My Souvenirs, do you remember that song,” she'd say, "I just love that song." I didn't know it then, but I know all the words now. I went out and bought it the day that she died and I've included the words and title in this piece.