Draft for an Obituary

My mother is dying. We’re not quite sure when, but one needs be prepared. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. She’s ninety-two, after all, and has been ailing for quite a while. Ninety-two, and has outlived anyone in the family by decades. Her parents, her sister, her husband, a child. All her in-laws, several nieces and nephews, countless friends.

She’s a survivor. Make no mistake about that. A fighter, who’s survived more than anyone I’ll likely ever know. The last of her generation. It’s amazing, really. Something to celebrate.

And yet, tick tock, we need be prepared. Need to find the right words. Unfortunately, our culture is not very good at this—talking about death. Or let’s just say I’m not very good at this. I worry I’ll do it wrong.

* * *

Obituaries. I’ve read them my whole life. Well, actually no. I haven’t, not like some people who turn to them daily alongside the headlines and weather forecast, the morning’s cup of joe. But I have glanced at them enough to know there’s a certain format. The person’s name, printed in bold type. Short sentences. Declarative and clear. A recording of dates and numbers, facts. Things did and done. Always past tense.

And the layout, always a small rectangular box of words, not all that unlike the shape of a casket. And then all of those laid out on the page in neat rows and columns, not unlike a cemetery’s plot.

* * *

Well, that’s kind of a downer beginning. Let’s try again.

* * *

My mother is dying. It’s her heart. It’s giving out. And no wonder. She’s ninety-two, after all. One’s parts wear out. She’s had procedures. Stents and surgeries. Tears in her aorta they’ve patched up with tiny little sleeves that magically expand from within. All to keep the blood flowing. But we’re not going to let them cut into her anymore. That much she’s made clear. She doesn’t even want to go back to a hospital again. And who can blame her? Like she says, the recoveries nearly killed her. Enough is enough.

Still, her heart is giving out. Then again, her heart has always been giving out. Always nurturing and tending to others. Nursemaiding, feeding, cooking—she’s a great cook by the way. It’s one way she could always show her love. We’re talking big portions. She’s a giver. Almost to a fault, if that’s possible. Or perhaps that’s part of her being able to survive this long. Wanting to keep giving. Before giving out.

* * *

OK. Still a little moribund. And it certainly doesn’t represent her very well beyond a litany of current health problems. There’s far more to her than that. A time when she was young and vigorous. Look at some of the framed photographs among her shelves: her twenty-fifth wedding anniversary—smiling and cutting cake, or her high school graduation photo—all airbrushed and glamorous, or as a child at Manhattan Beach—playing in the sand beside her sister and own mother. Lots of photographs to choose from.

She’s been accused of living too much in the past, of being a glass-half-empty person, but she has a sense of humor alongside her sense of tragedy, a desire for sunlight and springtime. She’ll sit at her breakfast table, gazing out the picture window at the backyard, waiting for that pair of squirrels who’ll come chase one another around the old cottonwood’s trunk.

Yes, that’s better. Put in the squirrels. Add some levity. Maybe tell some little anecdote about a time she acted out of character. Nothing off-color, but humorous. Something that might better connect with an audience.

Wait, that’s more for a eulogy. An obituary is different. Something written, not delivered. Printed on a page. Short and to the point. And meant to be read, by the living. By people, often strangers. Quietly, alongside one’s morning cup of joe.

* * *

There are actual templates you can get from funeral parlors, or online even. Simple fill-in-the-blanks models I imagine might come in handy in a jiffy. Full Name (Year Born—Year Died). Place of Birth and Childhood. Education. Career. Hobbies and Interests. Cause of Death (optional). Time and Location of any Services . . .

And know there’s a cost for placing an obituary. For the use of that space. Your squat text, paid for by the word. Like an advertisement of your death. No wonder they’re short.

My mother wouldn’t want to waste money either. She’s a child of the Depression, after all. Born in 1931 and old enough to have understood the austerities of wartime. The rationing. She still has a cupful of little red tokens she keeps on a shelf.

My mother wouldn’t want to waste money either. She’s a child of the Depression, after all. Born in 1931 and old enough to have understood the austerities of wartime. The rationing. She still has a cupful of little red tokens she keeps on a shelf. Although her father was a kosher butcher, so there was always meat on their table. A job he held begrudgingly, but as an immigrant he didn’t have much choice. Nor did my mother, as first generation, necessarily fulfill all her potential. Went from her father’s home to that of her husband’s. From daughter to wife to mother, like many women of her generation.

Yet she speaks of her childhood in glowing terms. It was a wonderful era to be in Brooklyn. Safe and sun filled. She wore out two pairs of roller-skates. Came home from school every day for lunch, where her mother would have a broiled lamb chop from their shop waiting. Once, her father hit the numbers and sent her to pick up the package of money. She played hooky from school with a friend, taking the subway to Ebbets Field for a Dodgers’ game. Felt guilty as hell, but did it twice. Saw Sinatra at the Paramount.

* * *

Nowadays, she doesn’t go out much anymore, unless it’s for a doctor’s appointment. Mostly she sits in her living room in a blue chair her grandson salvaged from some local hotel where he’d once worked. Faux leather and cracking, ugly. But it’s the one piece of furniture that’s comfortable for her. She sinks into it much of the day, squinting to read the newspaper, dozing off. Then after dinner, returns to sit and watch hours of television. Surrounded by those framed family photos for company. Oh, and her veritable forest of house plants, some decades old, that she lovingly tends and talks to daily. She literally suffers when she finds a dead leaf.

We’re doing our best to keep her living in her own home. To honor her wishes. Maintain whatever of her agency remains. I call her on the landline every night, checking in. My sister does the same each morning, then stops by to visit most afternoons. She lives nearby, just minutes away. For over forty years, though, I’ve lived further away. At times, thousands of miles away. In other states, across the ocean. I used to joke that one should live at least several zip codes away from one’s family. Distance oneself.

Meanwhile, she’s the last tie to where I come from. To who I come from.

* * *

It should be more than mere facts, no? An obituary. It should feel like you’ve met the person. Felt her heart. Walked with her late in the morning as she makes her way to the kitchen in her bathrobe and slippers. Stood beside her as she scoops out Maxwell House into the coffee maker, then leans against the countertop before her line of medication vials. A rainbow of pills—blue, yellow, little green ovals, statins and diuretics, regulators, blockers. Pressing her palms and weight against each cap to force them open. She could fill a weekly dispenser but doesn’t. She’s stubborn. Likes to struggle a little. To force herself to remember which pills when. To keep herself determined.

* * *

A question of heart, then. And heart function. And now, her breath. Something about there not being enough oxygen in her bloodstream, or about liquid gathering around her heart. Or water retention. A delicate negotiation between what her heart and kidneys can still do. The parts wearing out, after all. She’s ninety-two.

In any event, it’s all affecting her breathing. Her needing an air compressor that’s plugged into the wall and puffs out oxygen in a steady stream. A twenty-five foot long tube that drapes over her shoulder and follows her around the house. But again, she does more sitting than walking these days. Even with the machine, any exertion will lead to her “huffing and puffing,” as she calls it. Like merely shuffling with her walker to and from the bathroom, trying to make it in time because of the damn diuretics. Having to use adult diapers now. Endure all these daily humblings, these attacks to one’s dignity.

Meanwhile, all things considered, she’s doing all right. Still home and hanging in there. Some days breathing better than others. Still hanging on. She’s ninety-two, after all.

* * *

OK, that’s better. Keep it light. Get it right. Maybe try putting in something she would say? Some of her bon mots, like:

“From your mouth to god’s ears.”

“One should be so lucky.”

“That’s the important thing.”

“I’m going to let you go.”

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“I’m not ready yet.”

* * *

So, hearts. And heart function. Frankly, it’s been a theme in her life. Broken hearts, unfortunately. She lost a child prior to my being born. A boy with a malformed heart who doctors thought wouldn’t last seven days but under her diligent care made it to seven months. Probably the hardest thing she’s had to survive. Never discussed. Kept private, buried. Just prick her skin though, and it’s right there. A touchstone for all her losses, I think. A wellspring. She’ll still cry on a dime.

* * *

To sum up someone’s life in a single paragraph? To somehow cover all that breadth and breath?

* * *

Wrong. You’re doing it wrong . . . Keep it simple. Fill in the blanks.

* * *

OK, then. Childhood, Education. She never went to college. Her father wouldn’t let her, although her older sister certainly did. She never learned to swim or ride a bicycle. She never got to visit Japan, a place on the map she’s always wanted to go. But didn’t. Soon after she retired, however, she did start auditing classes at the local university. Ran through the art and history departments’ entire curriculums, then started round again, outliving professors. Thirty-plus-years-worth of sitting in the backs of classrooms, feeling marginal and undeserving, then becoming a source herself for some of that history, an eyewitness adored by faculty and students alike. Then this too was taken from her once she could no longer muster the strength to get to campus. I’m still wanting to petition the university to give her an honorary degree.

* * *

Sum it up, simply. Find the right wording. Short, and to the point.

* * *

OK, then. She deserved more. No, she deserves more.

* * *

To get it right. It’s a hard task.

To watch not just a body, but a life get smaller. Down to the circumference of a bedroom and bathroom, the kitchen, the living room. Tethered to a tube. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?

And that’s just watching from the outside. Imagine being in that body. In that blue chair sitting before the blue TV screen into the wee hours of the morning. Sitting all alone in that “living” room, waiting.

Sometimes the present can overwhelm the past. Perhaps that’s why she has all those family photos surrounding her. Overflowing the mantle and shelves, the piano, the coffee table. All her children and grandchildren, the nieces and nephews. All those smiles and happy moments to gaze at. Always present and keeping her company.

Sometimes the present can overwhelm the past. Perhaps that’s why she has all those family photos surrounding her. Overflowing the mantle and shelves, the piano, the coffee table. All her children and grandchildren, the nieces and nephews. All those smiles and happy moments to gaze at. Always present and keeping her company. And she converses with them daily. Like with her plants. They bring her joy. And yes, pride. And her daughter drops by with fresh photos to share on a phone screen of the great-grandchildren now, which she’ll squint at with her one good eye, discerning teeny changes in their bodies day to day. She says wants to stick around just a little longer to watch them grow just a little more. Repeats that she’s not ready yet.

* * *

Did I mention she lost vision in one of her eyes? It’s been a few years already. That’s been another loss she’s had to bear.

Cooking, too. She can’t stand for any length of time anymore. The simple joy of making food. Even her appetite, lost.

It doesn’t seem fair, does it? This long life you yearn for, and to be lucky enough to even reach, but then its reality. There should be some seniority, no? Things getting better, larger. More noble. More merciful.

To whom do you go to talk about that? To take account for that?

No, don’t go there. Keep it simple. Grounded. Just the facts. Statements, not questions.

* * *

But really, a single paragraph? How can you do someone justice in a handful of words; where’s the justice in that? It’s no better than that ridiculous dash between the dates on a tombstone.

To the point? I mean, what is the point?

Daughter, sister, wife, mother. What do those words really say?

Obituary. Actuary. Mortuary. Sanctuary.

* * *

I mean, I’m not even sure if she wants an obituary.

* * *

When I call her up on the phone at night to check in, I picture her in that blue chair and I can tell, almost immediately, what kind of day it’s been for her. It’s there in her voice. In her breathing. The relative space between words, the relative exertion or exhaustion. Or some days she’ll sound just fine, almost upbeat. Or whatever, but always happy to hear from me. Grateful for the call.

I’ve been dialing her nightly now for, I don’t know, at least the past couple years. I’ll admit there’ve been times it’s felt like a chore. When I’ve felt obliged. I’ve never been very good at phone. At making small talk. Sharing details. I’ve kept my distance. Whereas her orientation is very different.

I’ve been dialing her nightly now for, I don’t know, at least the past couple years. I’ll admit there’ve been times it’s felt like a chore. When I’ve felt obliged. I’ve never been very good at phone. At making small talk. Sharing details. I’ve kept my distance. Whereas her orientation is very different. After all, she was once a personnel manager. Back when the personal was still in “human resources.” Worked herself up to that position after years being a secretary. And come to think of it, back then I used to call her up every day when I’d get home from elementary school. Her way of checking up on me. Life turns around on you, doesn’t it?

Now, she’ll share all kinds of details about what time she woke up and about the weather or what she ate, letting me know who called, or that no one called. This is, after all, what her days have been reduced to. The meals, increasingly meager. Sliced bananas and sour cream. Leftover tuna salad my sister made for her. The daily scrabble game report—thank god she can still see those tiles—about getting stuck with all vowels. All a’s and i’s and u’s. Struggling to find a word.

On and on she’ll go with step-by-step minutiae I can grow impatient with and try to derail with questions, but she’ll always go back and finish her sentence, like a needle stuck in the record’s groove. Admittedly, there are times I’ll hold the phone at arm’s length, feeling horrible about it, but there we are. That’s how we’ve communicated, her having to fill in all the blanks that I don’t. Her having to bridge my distance.

Sometimes she’ll lose interest too, and suddenly say, “So, I’m going to let you go …”

After all, there’s a TV show waiting. Reruns of Murder She Wrote or The Golden Girls. Turner Movie Classics. Or more and more, the Hallmark channel that she’ll watch for hours on end. One show after the other with the same homey, predictable plot. The same happy ending.

* * *

Near the end of obituaries, of course, there’s the “survived by” section.

She is survived by . . . No, she has survived by living alone. For forty years now. Forty, after fifty of never being alone. Survived by will. By stubbornness. By habit. By counting days. By prayer. Every Friday night, lighting candles just before the sun sets. Devoutly standing there each and every Friday evening with her eyes closed, her arms circling the flames of candlesticks that were once her mother’s from the old country. A ritual and a birthright. An accounting. For once her arms stop circling, her lips start moving, murmuring. Remembering the prayer’s foreign words, then naming the names of all who have passed before her. Each family member and friend and acquaintance of note. And the list growing ever longer, ever harder to recall. Each one. Each name. Each dearly departed. She doesn’t want to miss anyone on the list. She needs to get it right.

Each and every one spoken half under her breath. A private petitioning for five, ten minutes worth of names. Of her dearly departed.

Each name. To count each one. Because each one still counts. To get it right. To remember, and to be remembered. Against the tides of forgetting.

* * *

The blue chair. The photographs. The plants. The glow of the television screen at two in the morning. The echo of past voices among the rain falling on the skylights overhead. The dropping of dead leaves. The air compressor, puffing. The parade of days. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

* * *

Obits. Bits of a life.

* * *

‘I’m going to let you go.’ Such a gentle way to get out of a conversation. Or to let me know my inattention was audible.

My distance and dissociation. Recently growing less and less though, I’m happy to admit. Because slowly, I’ve been learning to listen better. To pay attention and be present on the phone, ask better questions. To share my own days’ banalities and not just summarize them in a spare word or two. To slowly recognize that all those little details aren’t just about being personable but intimate. About learning to share one’s life. The life she gave me, after all.

And when I’m able to visit her in person—the odd week or month when I can get off from my job and give my sister a break—I get to be physically present, too. To not only cook meals for her, but help her take a shower. Then kneel before her and clip the toenails she can no longer reach. Rub lotion into her shins, her ankles, her feet. To do as well as talk. Or just sit beside her in silence. Together, while I still can. While we still can.

So maybe that’s the important thing.

All those saccharine Hallmark specials about love and loss and finally finding connection. One should be so lucky.

* * *

“So, I’m going to let you go.” To hang up. To have to end the conversation. To not be able to just dial her up at night. Either tonight or tomorrow night. Some night to have to sit there, left newly alone in a distant room. To let that silence set in.

After all, someday we will all gasp our last breath.

Everything is transient, right? Everything a draft. A practice run, filled with things you wish you might’ve done differently. Or done period. Or didn’t do. But one shouldn’t have regrets, or excuses. There’s only so many lines you can include. Tick Tock. You ultimately only have one shot at an obituary. At a life, lived.

* * *

Still, they say you die twice. Once, when you take that last breath, and once when your name is last spoken.

So, if I may, I’d like you to take a moment with me and think about someone you’ve lost, or maybe just someone you care about a lot. Someone who’s important to you.

Now, take a moment to recall some simple memory of a time you shared with them. Go ahead, close your eyes; it might help to picture them again before you. That person’s face and expression. The clothes they were wearing that day. What time of year it was, what season . . .

And picture where you were, as well. Take the time to really see that place and space. And what it was you were doing together . . .

And what words passed between you, or not. What you wish you could still say to that person. Or if you could, what you would ask . . .

Or just be there with them, silent . . . sharing the moment together, the breaths . . .

And when you feel ready, take a step back from that moment and that person . . . then another step back, seeing them framed in that space, almost like in a photograph you’d keep on a shelf that you can visit with any time you like . . .

But now you’re going to wave goodbye to that person and come back to the room where you’re sitting now, perhaps among other people nearby, hearing their breaths . . . and slowly open your eyes.