Lunch conversations

Emma asked me, "So what will I inherit when you die?"

That gave me pause.  For one thing, can we not plan my demise quite yet?  For another thing, I don't have that many treasures.  There's Felicia but I'll probably outlive her and there's Horace, but I think I want to go the Egyptian pharaoh route and have him buried with me.

I thought for awhile and I said, "How about I'll give you the tablecloth I bought in France?"

She smiled and nodded her approval. "What about the boys?" she asked. "What do they get?"

I didn't know.  "I guess you are the only one that gets anything," I said.

Mark said, "I can have everything on the top shelves."

Emma agreed.  "You and Braeden can have stuff that is up high that I can't reach and I'll get everything on the lowest shelves."

"And we'll eat corn dogs and Chinese food," Mark said.  They delight in talking about the foods they'll eat, the foods I dislike, at my funeral.

Did they have to act so gleeful?

I'd better not start seeing them move things to higher or lower shelves depending on whether or not they want the stuff.

Then Mark made a realization, "Wait.  If Mom dies, Dad gets everything."

"Maybe we'll both die at the same time, in a blaze of glory," I said.

"You were born on the same day," Emma said.  "So you should die on the same day too."

(We'll try.)

Times like this, I can think about the child that isn't here and pretend that if he were here, he wouldn't be so callously and cavalierly planning for how to celebrate when I die.  On the other hand, when he was growing up, he'd look forward to the day I die so he could watch Star Wars Episode III.

(I didn't let them watch that for years.  Now they have.  At least they still have corn dogs and Chinese food to look forward to.)