The Snowfield – II

Reflections on dying from the relative safety of middle age. Part II of II.

The Snowfield — II

Lives have a bureaucratic inertia that doesn’t easily let go, and I’ll leave months of the same middle-class headaches behind that every other middle-class person leaves behind. The kids will struggle with the accountant resolving annuity questions. They’ll call the IRS for their mother. They’ll track down signed copies of death certificates from the county coroner’s office.

If I go “second” they’ll be even busier. They’ll have to sell the house and decide who gets the piano and the Kevin Beers paintings and the red Chinese chest with the gold-edged swans. Sifting through my things, one of them will smile and remember dad’s repetitive old joke: “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

It will help if I manage some of this before I head off to the hospital for that first major surgery. I’ll know I should work through the attic boxes, itemize who gets what, write up notes, and orchestrate gently from the grave. Because pretty much no matter how bad it is ab…