My mother left on a ten-day vacation on Thursday. She’s off to the East Coast to see some old friends, take in a broadway show or two, drive down the coast and explore some civil war sites. I spoke to her the night before she left, and she decided to tell me where she keeps the key to her safe deposit box.
“I keep the original copy of my will in it,” she said.
“You have some plans I should know about?” I asked.
She laughed and then briefly noted that she just wants to be prepared . . . or she just wants me to be prepared, that is.
Ever since my father died, my mother has thought a lot about her own mortality. On the evening we met for dinner to celebrate my birthday, she gave me a copy of her will. Every time I speak to her, she mentions some little detail, like in which drawer of her jewelry box I can find all the real gold and silver earrings. I don’t mind. In fact, I really appreciate how important it is to her to take care of all these strange details rather than leaving them to my brother and me. I know, too, that when my mother passes on, my brother will be solid as rock. He may grieve privately, but he will keep a calm public face so that he can make all the necessary decisions and arrangements and allow for as smooth a transition as possible . . . because that’s what my mother wants.
Occasionally, it strikes me that I have never known life without my mother in it.
And I do think about my father now and then. For a brief moment I forget that he’s dead and expect to see him walking down the street wearing the same dirty light grey rain hat he’s had for more than 20 years now. And then I remember.
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Don’t Jewish women have a tendency to hang around for a very long time? *wink*
Yes, actually, they do, at least in my family. My mother’s mother lived to be 98 years old. Sadly, she spent the last, oh, 30-some-odd years of her life in a nursing home (that’s another story altogether). My great aunt lived to be 96, and my father’s mother lived to be 90, I think. Yup.
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