My grandma spent $30,000 to join our family’s Europe trip. But at the airport, my dad said, ‘I forgot your ticket—just go home.’ The way everyone avoided her eyes told me it wasn’t an accident. I stayed with her. Three weeks later, my parents came back—and the whole family froze, like they were holding their breath, when they saw me standing beside a man. Because…

“Calvin, you’re growing so fast I can barely keep up,” she’d say, laughing as she reached up to ruffle my hair.

But her eyes—those warm, hazel eyes that I was named after—always sparkled like I was the best thing that had ever walked through her door.

Those summer days felt like heaven.

She taught me how to bake cookies from scratch, letting me crack the eggs and sneak chocolate chips from the bowl. She told me stories about her hospital nights—tiny preemies who pulled through when no one thought they would, cranky surgeons who secretly cried when a patient died, the way she used to hide a peppermint in her pocket for scared kids in the pediatric ward.

We’d sit on the porch at dusk, watching fireflies blink in the yard while the local radio station played country songs and old rock ballads on a crackly speaker inside. Sometimes she laughed so hard telling a story she had to wipe tears from her eyes.