My husband and I just celebrated our 59th anniversary.
And I just heard myself saying the most bizarre thing. I said, “I have seven years left, and you have three more years after that. So you’ll be getting casseroles.”
He said, “What?”
I said, “After I die, the casserole ladies will come around. They’ll be vying for you.”
And then he said the most bizarre thing.
He didn’t say, “Why are you talking about our demise?” He didn’t say, “I’m not interested in loving anyone else.” He didn’t say, “I’ve had the love of my life. I don’t need another relationship.”
He said, “What’s in a casserole?”
“Tuna and noodles,” I said. “And mac and cheese, stuff you like and I never make.
“But,” I continued, “I don’t think you’ll choose based on which dish you like the best. I think you won’t choose at all. She’ll choose you. It will be the one who won’t leave, the one who’ll hang around and just be there until a friend says, Are you guys living together? and simultaneously you’ll say no and she’ll say yes. Exactly the way I got you.”
In fact, that dialogue, the “are you two living together” dialogue, is verbatim what happened with us. First I moved my pillow in. Then I left a few sweaters lying around. Then my white Reebok hightops. (He should have known at that point there was no way I would have lived anywhere without my white Reebok hightops.)
To be fair, we were very young. It was 1965, and we were extremely innocent 25-year-olds.
BTW, my calculating how long we have left to live isn’t based on any actuarial tables. My mother died at 92, and Joel’s mother died at 99. So it was, I guess, guesswork.
All this talk about death and dying could be depressing, but I find it interesting. Suzuki Roshi, a Buddhist monk, says you will always exist in some form. I like that. It feels very reassuring. Especially since this form has been giving me trouble lately.
Unlike almost all my friends, who say they have been thinking about death their whole lives, I haven’t thought of my own death as a reality, or even a possibility, till recently. I think it’s because my father died when I was so young, I probably put death in a little box with a complicated lock, and never had a key made.
My contemporaries talk about simplifying so their children don’t have all their stuff to deal with. Getting real about the burden my son will have if I don’t start cleaning up, throwing out, selling off, getting rid of all the junk we have collected in our long and acquisitive lifetime. What to do about all this stuff has begun to weigh not heavily, but to at least insert itself into my consciousness. And the casserole ladies will appreciate not having to look at your past life as well.
I have a few people in my life who are starting to shame me into facing facts about shedding the piles and shelves and boxes of nostalgia I haven’t been able to let go of.
I have been driving around with 80 books in my car, with the intention of donating them to the West Tisbury library book sale. But I missed the deadline for donations.
I actually hired someone to do that “Does it spark joy?” thing for my closets. We had a pile for the Dumptique and one for eBay and one for throwing out. I couldn’t throw out the throw-out ones (they all had stories I couldn’t part with), and the eBay ones look too unattractive to try to sell, but too nice to chuck. And the Dumptique ones are now lying on top of the books.
Yes, I’m in the letting-go dilemma. I’ll need some community help with this. If you see the car parked (it’s a black Prius with the windows open and the doors unlocked), feel free to try anything on — slide in, get comfortable, and start reading. (The good ones are on the top.)
If I still have all this stuff in February, I bet the bulk of it will act as ballast if I find myself on a patch of black ice. So there’s that. I’ve always said a good outfit and a great book can save a bleak day.
It suddenly occurs to me this stuff might be the perfect thing to leave in my will to … you guessed it … the casserole ladies.
