Momma would sit down with her laptop on the couch and eat ice all day long. Yes, I’m talking cold cubes of ice and a never ending “CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH” that drove me up a god-damn wall.

I googled it once. Web MD said that eating ice, or Pagophagia, as its known in the world of medical science, can be related to an iron-deficiency, or anemia.

“I’m telling you, mom, you’re anemic.”

“The hell I am cracka, can’t a woman just enjoy eating some ice?”

She called everyone ‘cracka’, it was a habit. She even called the doctor cracka when she went in for her yearly check-up. He said something was wrong, so I googled it.

One day I walked past my couch and heard her again, “CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH”, so I reclined back and closed my eyes and smiled.

But, when I opened my eyes, the sound was gone.

I sat there for an hour, waiting to see if I could hear that crunch one last time. The truth is, I wouldn’t find it annoying anymore, it was beautiful, it was the diminuendo of a symphony.