Khukhu's memory comes to me in fragments. In one of these flashbacks, I am about ten years old, biting my tongue as she leans over me trying to remove a thorn lodged in the heel of my foot. On the chair beside me is plastic tin full of mushrooms from our 'trip' to the kitchen garden to forage for mushrooms. In another, I am absent-mindedly listening to her try to explain the medicinal value of the plants growing behind the kennel. In yet another memory, she places a large scoop of sim sim paste next to the vegetables on my plate before passing me my share of ugali.I spent all my childhood holidays in shagz and every holiday my experience was different. When I was younger, it was an endless adventure limited only by my imagination. My cousins and I would play 'matatu' in the old granary, transform the trips to the river into odysseys fraught with all kinds of monsters and obstacles that needed to be overcome, and dusk ushered a thrilling game of hide and seek under a pitch black sky filled with stars.When turbulent puberty hit, I'd spent listless afternoons under the shade of the jacaranda tree and evenings in khukhu's bedroom. She would speak with nostalgia about her days working as a nurse in Maseno and it was fascinating to watch her so completely engrossed in the memories that she would sometimes forget I was in the room. I learnt a lot about indigenous medicine from her and the consistency that is necessary for the home remedies to work.Khukhu was empathetic to a fault. Always one to see the best in others, she would cover for my mischievousness so that I would not get in trouble with my mother. My grandmother passed away a few years ago and even though I can't spend evenings at the foot of her bed listening to stories about her youth, I still carry her memory in the scent of menthol balm, the stickiness of sim sim paste on the roof of my mouth and the dark green pigment of the Guinea grass stain on my fingertips.