Tribute...

A recurring theme these past months has been Mom's refrain: “I just wish I could go to sleep and not wake up...that I am still alive must be a sign God thinks I haven't been a ‘good-enough’ girl."

During the last conversation we had about this, I asked Mom if she really believed that...when she said she wasn’t sure, I reminded her…of her steadfastness…that she never smoked a cigarette...never sipped an alcoholic beverage...never swore…OK, at 85 I did finally hear her describe a long-dead relative as "such a shit"...blurting it out...sort of shocking both of us...and then we laughed and laughed...

I reminded her of the many selfless things she had done throughout her life...how she used the funny papers to teach an illiterate student how to read…how she left her beloved Tennessee to make a new life in California where my dad had found work…how as a young wife and mother, she walked away from her teaching career…a profession she loved...to take care of my dad after he had his first stroke…and his second…and his third...how she learned to drive so she could take Dad to appointments at the hospital in San Francisco…a drive she made three times a week...for three years...how she was the kind of mother that baked individual heart-shaped cakes for each of the kids in my first-grade class...every one decorated with flower piping and the child’s name in icing script...

I reminded her of the time she peeled hundreds of dead, dried toadlets off of the drum of her friend's washing machine...the same friend she took on annual holiday trips to Podesta Baldocchi…how she planned block parties to celebrate Independence Day and to welcome all the new neighbors…complete with parades and prizes for the kids…and more food than any group of people could possibly finish... how she sneaked down the block, leaving anonymous Christmas gifts on the steps of neighbors’ houses where young children lived…how even in her 90s, she carefully selected special items she knew her friends would appreciate…satsumas from her backyard, Chandler walnuts she had meticulously shelled by hand…sending them surprise care packages…

I reminded her how she cared for her neighbors when they became ill…how she supported her best friend when she could no longer live in her own home…how she cared for her own mother when Grandma could no longer care for herself...

Our conversation prompted me to ask her if there was any space on her headstone for an epitaph...(yes, of course she has a plot...already paid for and with a marker in place...her name and date of birth chiseled in stone...including a placeholder for her date of death...she even wrote her own obituary...in her own hand...it will be published word-for-word...all in all, as elaborate a plan as the funeral she crafted for her favorite baby doll...

Mom's plot is located in the Sequatchie Valley Memorial Gardens in Jasper, Tennessee…to the right of my daddy's...who is next to Mom's mother…who is next to her husband, my grandfather...which always led Grandma Condra to describe herself as a rose who was going to buried between two thorns...

Mom said she wasn't sure there was room for an epitaph...this is when I told her I was thinking it should say 'herein lies a really good girl"...which is when she replied "well, you can always inscribe it on the back”...and we laughed and laughed...

And as all of you receiving this email know, a truer statement was never made...Mom was a really good girl who finally got the ending she has been planning all along...she fell into a peaceful sleep and died about four hours ago…holding my hand…just after telling me I’ve been a really good girl…