Love Lives On

Written by Xiangxuan Wang from the International Department of Chengdu Shude High School, China

The world remembers people in quiet, strange ways.

Some by photographs pressed between old books.

Some by voices sealed in forgotten recordings.

I remember my mother by a scent that lingered long after she left the room.

It clung to sun-warmed cotton swaying on the line, lavender and old soap still holding the warmth of her hands.

Every evening she washed away more than dust.

The kitchen never hurried.

Soup breathed in the pot.

Bread rose without haste.

Honey slipped into warm cake as if time had forgotten how to rush.

Perhaps the first place I learned gentleness was at that table.

Our home was never silent.

Rain tapped the windows.

The washing machine hummed deep into the evening.

None of it felt loud.

She never silenced the world.

She simply taught us how to live gently inside it.

For years I thought I missed her scent:

lavender, jasmine, vanilla,

bread cooling by the window,

tea waiting on the table.

I was wrong.

It was never the fragrance I carried into the world.

It was the way she folded tomorrow into clean sheets.

The patience of waiting for bread to rise.

The quiet certainty that kindness could be ordinary.

Sometimes I still catch it—

on freshly washed cotton,

inside warm bread,

between the pages of a book left open by the window.

The gentlest things rarely announce themselves.

They simply remain inside those who once knew what it meant to feel safe.

That is why

the world has never felt

quite as lonely

as it could have been. Artist Statement:

"Love Lives On" explores peace not as the absence of conflict, but as the quiet sense of safety created through everyday acts of love and care. The poem reflects on how a mother's gentle routines, washing clothes, baking bread, and sharing simple moments, continue to shape the speaker long after her absence. It suggests that kindness and compassion can endure across generations, offering an inner peace that remains with us and influences the way we move through the world.