What Does Her Legacy Look Like?

It looks like the pink granite, peony-engraved headstone Karl had made for her.
It looks like what she wrote in lipstick on the bathroom mirror before her last ride: “Claire Loves Karl” with a big lopsided heart.
It looks like the string lights hung up on the patio of her house, that still come on every night.
It looks like Hilary and I, making guesswork of arranging floral sprays for her graveside.
It looks like the two poodles with ridiculous haircuts that she left behind for us.
It looks like Max’s confusion when it’s not her that gets out of her car in the driveway, but me.
It looks like a tubby, giggly 5 month old. It looks like Karl and my Grandpa blessing him in the living room.
It looks like me ugly crying behind the wheel of her car. It looks like me losing focus mid-sentence, and more tired than usual.
It looks like my big sister bouncing her baby on her knee and singing to him.
It looks like the dusty boxes and boxes of mementos and photos she kept stacked up for us, labeled by kid name, in her garage.
It looks like my apartment plastered in photos of her. She called this stage of grief the “shrining phase.”
It looks like her pink quilt on my bed, that’s rapidly losing the scent of her. It looks like Daniel nuzzled closely (almost desperately) into that quilt while he sleeps in my bed.
It looks like Karl kneeling at the foot of her grave. It looks like his gold wedding band.

Her hands, the way she gestured with them, the way she wore her rings, the way her light pink nail polish looked a little bit chipped. Her toe rings.
Her laugh lines, the peculiarities of her own skin, the large scar on her shin from when she fell on glass as a little girl.
The way she scrunched up her face when she was laughing uncontrollably. Her button nose. Her goofy grin.
Her body language, her stride as she walked through the grocery store, the way she carried her footsteps as she walked from her car to the front door.
The way her hands looked perched on the steering wheel.
The way she stood on one leg when she was cooking something on the stovetop, sampling whatever she was making from a spoon.
The way she ate ice cream for dinner most nights, and always in bed.
The way she looked at me.