When the tide is right, I will hold you tight in the way

On May 6, 1923, my grandmother was born in Brooklyn. I have seen the naturalization papers of her parents and the census records of her childhood, but never her birth certificate, so I have no idea at which hospital or under which name, but her eyes as deep-set as a cat's looked out of the photos of her toddler self that papered the walls of the guest bedroom in my grandparents' house in Maine with the rest of the family collage. For her memory this afternoon, we baked the traditional strawberry shortcake for her birthday and tuned in to the Kentucky Derby, which my mother watched with her for years. She liked violets, so I brought some inside with the lilac, in a glass jar that used to hold horseradish.