Running in the Family

"My Grandmother died in the blue arms of a jacaranda tree. She could read thunder."

— Michael Ondaatje, Running in the Family

I read Running in the Family for the fourth time, in preparation for a class conversation on Monday. I come across the lines I remember loving and the lines that strike me as being brand new. This line here is an old favorite—the surprising synesthesia, the resurrection of the grandmother, the utterly indelible attributes. People are known for many things. We pile up our store of anecdotes. At the end of life, what will define you? What would it be to be the one memorialized by a gift for reading thunder?