Original:  
Sadie, somebody's just a laying on their horn this morning, right outside your window. I just sat down to get through to you, but he's out there, just hollering his ass off. So how I'm supposed to do this?

Translation:  
Grandmother, I should not speak to the dead, but I'm lonely. Yesterday afternoon I slept, hot dreaming of a baby that wouldn't stop crying in my arms. It was mine, that baby, and its hunger was all I needed in this world.

Original:
Sadie, you would throw a fit. That stupid fucking EMS done tore up your carpet with their dirty boots, and Frankie had to tape up your mirrored closet door where they cracked it trying to get you outta here. I don't know what their big rush was anyways, considering. I been Windexing and Cloroxing since I got here Thursday, but ain't a thing I can do for that carpet except rip it up, and your closet door's no good until I can just replace it.  

Translation:  
Grandmother, your son pulled your teeth out for drops of nitroglycerin, morphine, a desperate last phenobaritol. It was 2:00 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon and the tumor in your abdomen had pushed your heart up so far it couldn't anymore. EMS arrived and took you to the hospital to run an EKG to prove what we already knew. It was paperwork, really, pushing it through quickly in order for the state to wrap things up. Hospice picked up your bed the very next morning and sent a nurse to count and collect all unused pills.

Original:
Frankie, God bless his pea-picking heart, is just about the sweetest fucker I ever did see. Did you know he ran up to Publix yesterday morning just to get me Cheetos and everything to make chicken n' dumplings? Now you know and I know that that cheese and that soup was just a making him gag, but he did it anyways, God love him. He's trying, Sadie. He's trying.

Translation:  
Your lactose-intolerant son. Your son who cleared out every single item in your refrigerator after you were gone but refused to let anyone move anything else. Your one-armed reading glasses, your extra-large bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, your rhinestone writing pen. All still on your nightstand. He's drinking again, and heavy, and last night he was already asleep when it was still light outside and still asleep when I got home. He's trying. Jesus, is he trying.

Original:  
Don't you fuss at me. I ain't seeing that boy no more, and I did just what you said to do: I kept my head high and walked right past.

Translation:
The one I was with was sour and cold, so I held on for a month or two, hoping.

Original:
I got little Jim's class ring for him, and for mama I'm bring her your rolling pen and flour sifter. And for myself I'm collecting all the little things I can that might help me remember, like your Aqua-filters and one of them 16-ounce plastic glasses you like for your Pepsi. I'm taking an article too I found in your underwear drawer, the one about Pleasant Grove and that river you were baptized in. And oh, yeah, I'm taking this lavender scarf. I hope you don't mind, I thought I just might wear it in my hair when the weather turns this spring.

Translation:  
It is not enough. I cannot describe you and lay you flat on this page with words, words, words.  The palm trees beyond your living room window have grown thick enough that no one could possibly see from the outside now.