Wills Read and Written

The last time all we siblings are together is for The Reading of the Will.

Not Mom’s.

Tom gathers us all in a hotel room to carry out the duty he assumed. Even John manages to make it.

•••

What long roots of family love, you have, Tom, reaching back to the family tree you drew on the fold-down desk you built. Most practical of us all, you know your way around a toolbox and a contract and half the airports in the world. But you know your way around the human heart as well, and spring to spare it pain.

After Dad died, even as you reared your two fine sons, you and Linda kept an eye on Mom, took her on trips, talked with her. You and Linda traveled, too, with lonely Mary Kay and Mom’s unmarried sister Ellen, an executive secretary. Did odd jobs for them, helped them move. Gave them bountiful gifts of time, of love, of attention we could not. Gallant, in the best old-fashioned rescuing-a-girl-and-her-schoolbook-from-the-icy-creek sense.

•••

So when we fly in for the funeral and gather in the hotel room, it is because you have performed the myriad tasks of executor.

Of course, there are not enough chairs for all of us—we are scattered over beds, couch, and floor. With a smile, you announce that Aunt Ellen was well-paid, thrifty, and an excellent investor. She wanted all us here together to discover, as you read, that she was leaving her charming Culver City bungalow to Mary Kay and that each of us will receive several thousand dollars from her substantial estate. We’re staggered, laughing, slapping our foreheads. Who’da thunk it? I make a joke that makes Pogo laugh—a treasure nugget, for though he is not speaking to me, it cheers me still to make him laugh.

It is just at this moment, as I sit on the floor at Mary Kay’s knee, that I catch the first whiff of Mary Kay’s decline. Unmistakable. She is incontinent.

•••

Later we Youngers see the heartbreaking state of her house. It’s the bungalow Ellen left her, which she and Ellen neatly shared for years. Kako has lived here alone since Ellen moved to assisted living three years ago.

Thirty unopened QVC boxes obstruct her porch. Inside, she’s hoarding, living with dirt, rotting food, trash, not even letting her little dogs outside to relieve themselves. It’s clear her mind is slipping and that she can’t care for herself. Her deterioration is especially hard on Tom and Linda, for while Kako’s been distant from us, she’s Tom’s Big Sis, Linda’s friend, and like a grandma to their boys. I can’t imagine how I’d feel were I watching Ro decline like this.

Jim and I confer. That night at dinner, we tell our siblings he and I will take responsibility for Mary Kay.

“Ro took care of Mom; Tom and Linda watched over Ellen and Kako. It’s our turn to step up to the plate.”

A warm wash of gratitude from those who have already served.

•••

Jim’s expertise proves hugely helpful; his emotional support indispensable as we navigate the vagaries of the medical system and the legal system on behalf of Mary Kay and her disintegrating system.

I’m on the phone with him now much more often; we take trips to California to handle the multitude of necessities, from getting Mary Kay diagnosed, (yes, early Alzheimer’s) to helping her make a will and arranging Power of Attorney. Although impaired, she has enough smarts to know what she’s doing and tells us she knows we have her best interest at heart. Jim and I share meals, martinis, laughter, and angst. On these trips I also spend more time with Tom and Linda and their kids, some of whom come to help clean out the house. Ro flies down when she can and is especially helpful when we need to move Kako to assisted living.

•••

And you, dear Kako, distant sister, independent woman of granite resolve these many years, I’ve gotten to know you and your history as both are dissolving. Like Mom, you bestow the Zen privilege of loving you now in the moment however you need. I’m grateful to thank you for mothering me in my earliest days by mothering you in your last ones.

And suddenly, I see our gift to you has returned to us a family-fold, for our efforts to be sure you live with human decency have brought most of us siblings closer than ever. Thanks to you, we’ve gotten to know each other better, to enjoy each other’s company. We now make time, take trips with each other. Even into the wilderness.