Relay

Pamela Thiele

About 20 years ago Mother started preparing us for her death. She was basically healthy (except for some egregious joint problems), but she didn't want us quarreling over her possessions after she died.

Or so she said. My theory was that she was always happiest when she was morose.

For instance, she would tell us as children that we had pets so we could learn about death. Or there was my senior year in high school, also known as "the year of the last time we'll ever do this as a family." The last Thanksgiving. The last Christmas. The last picnic.

And although I frankly couldn't wait for things like the last time I'd have to go to choir practice, where Mom had concluded it was okay for her to sing the soprano line an octave more or less lower, I started to get fairly guilt ridden and depressed.

Because I was going off to college, I felt as though I were breaking up our family single-handedly. It never dawned on me that both my older siblings were around all the time, and therefore I too would probably return for certain family events.

At any rate, Mom sat us down 20 years ago and told us that since she was dying soon, she was going to divide up the family photos, so we wouldn't quarrel.

At that moment, we got set in the pattern we've followed every time since. My sister burst into tears and ran from the room. My brother tried to pretend he was not there. And I, child of the '60s that I am, tried to feel Mom's pain and understand her.

But Mom was having a perfectly fine time. So she repeated it a few months later. She reminded us she would be dying soon and we shouldn't quarrel, so . . .

The spoils under consideration that day were her china teacup collection, her hurricane lamp collection, and her commemorative British royalty mugs collection.

Tears. Withdrawal. Cloying understanding.

And so it went through the years.

Although I eventually moved far enough away not to be able to go home frequently, I was not exempt. I would get "dying soon" by phone.

"Dear," Mother would say, "as you know I'm going to die soon and so the next time you come home, I want us all to sit down and go through the old books." ". . . the Canterbury Tales collection . . ." (Don't ask.)

". . . the jewelry from my mother

. . ." ". . . my notes and posters from teaching . . ."

I also believed that Mom worried about whether we'd miss her and whether she'd be remembered once she was gone. I think a grandchild would have taken care of a lot of this, not in the least because a grandchild would ensure that her heirlooms stayed in the family. Alas, Mother never got one.

I have promised her I would make sure all her handiwork, the painstakingly handmade, extraordinary quilts, the intricate, delicate embroideries, the astonishingly beautiful crocheted tablecloths and table runners and doilies, would go to people who would appreciate them and care for them.

But of course with no grandchildren it will still be to people she'll never know, and who never knew her. That I can't fix.

Recently I've begun to think I've been a little arrogant in my understanding of Mother. Now I think it has not been so much about immortality or appreciation or helping us cope with what will be a very great loss indeed. Now I think that all along Mom was trying to prepare herself for her own death. It has slowly dawned on me that she's stopped talking about dying soon.

In December, rather than her old "I'll be dying soon so don't get me anything," she said simply, "Please don't get me anything, Pammie, because, well, you know."

She is 88. Most of her contemporaries are gone. Now I realize it was her own soft heart she was trying to protect when she so verbally and repeatedly anticipated our various pets' deaths through the years. So maybe it was she who needed the long preparation for her own.

I don't think she looks forward to dying. She is too curious about life to want to leave it. And though she's the wife and granddaughter and niece of ministers, her faith has focused more on good deeds on Earth than on what rewards await in heaven.

She no longer says it, because it has become true. She will be dying sooner now rather than later. It breaks my heart. And I think, by her silence, it breaks her heart too.