So hear Minerva Pennebaker tell it, she could “go” at any minute. “Go where?” you might be tempted to ask if you’d never met Minerva. But if you know her at all, if you’d served on a committee with her at church, perhaps, or been in a long line with her at the grocery store, you know that Minerva is talking about her impending demise. Which, ever since her seventy-fifth birthday back in 2010, has been an ever-present concern.

Minerva doesn’t think her obsession with her mortality is depressing; quite the contrary—she thinks it’s practical, and she finds it helps her live each day to the fullest, energized as she is by the possibility that it might be her last. She also thinks it helpful, not morbid, that she has chosen the dress she wants to be buried in, along with the appropriate undergarments and one of her own mother’s handkerchiefs, the one with the monogram. She’d like to be laid to rest wearing the pearl brooch her husband gave her, God rest his soul, but she knows that would not be fair to her only daughter, Eliza.

“My dress, slip, and stockings are in the dresser in my bedroom,” she told Eliza on an otherwise fine spring day while they were having a bite to eat at Honey’s Bakery and Café. “I don’t think you need shoes, but if you do you can use those black Ferragamos I’ve had forever. And don’t forget Granny’s handkerchief.”

“What are you talking about?” Eliza asked, although as soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew the answer.

“The clothes I want you to bury me in,” said Minerva, pulling her compact out of her purse. “I put them in the hospital drawer.”

Minerva had been placing nightgowns, bed jackets, and quilted slippers into the bottom drawer of her dresser for several years now, ever since her heart scare awhile back when she was rushed to the hospital in a T-shirt and old baggy pants, the ones she wears when cleaning the house. She’s fine, no need to worry, but she hasn’t yet quite recovered from the indignity of it all; and so she vowed not to be caught unprepared again. Hence the hospital drawer, which was now apparently also becoming the funeral drawer. Soon Minerva would need a new bureau altogether.

Eliza finds all this death talk depressing, and she wishes it would stop. Eliza believes that if you don’t think about disturbing things, like global warming or overdraft fees at the bank, then you won’t have to deal with them. At least not today. She knows this is not realistic; she did graduate college after all. But such blissful ignorance makes it easier for Eliza to get through life. For the time being, though, Eliza has decided to humor her mother and play along, acting as if her mother could, indeed, go at any minute.

Toward that end, Eliza is planning the best holiday gathering ever for her family, in case it really is her mother’s last. For starters, Eliza gathered up her best recipes, like pistachio pork tenderloin with cream, English pea casserole, and blackberry wine cake. The tenderloin had been a family favorite as far back as Eliza can remember, and her mother has always had a fondness for blackberries. The twins would expect mushroom bacon casserole, and Gert, their third cousin twice removed—at least they think that’s what Gert is—would have a fit if there wasn’t any sweet potato cobbler on the buffet.

As for flowers, Eliza will call down to the Bouquet Boutique for some holly, because hers never took off like she had hoped when she planted it along the back fence. She’ll have to hire someone to help her clean the house. Giving dusty baseboards their proper due is not high on Eliza’s list of priorities, never has been. Sure, she has many fine qualities, but housekeeping isn’t one of them. She used to feel bad about it, guilty somehow. But then Eliza turned fifty and stopped caring what other people thought about her. Except, that is, for her mother.

To all accounts, Eliza was an exceptional child. Not like her twin brothers, who were identical in every sense of the word, down to their tendency to wear thin on their mother’s nerves.

“You never gave me one moment’s worry,” Minerva always said. “If I told you to go sit in that chair, you sat.”

Chances are, sitting in the chair was safer than playing with the twins, who could turn a simple game of tag into a run for Eliza’s life. Still, though, it made her happy to know her mother appreciated her goodness. They were all adults now, so it mattered less who was the favorite, but Eliza couldn’t stop herself from wanting to impress their mother.

For dessert, they’d also have to have pecan pie, as Eliza couldn’t recall a holiday gathering without it. There’d be communion at church, of course, on Christmas Eve, but they probably would not go to midnight mass this year. It was too late for Minerva, and if the truth be told, Eliza herself had gotten to a stage in life where she preferred lights-out right after the ten-o’clock news, although she didn’t even watch that much anymore considering how depressing every report seemed to be. Where were the feel-good stories about children inventors and cats being rescued from treetops by volunteer firefighters?

So, yes, this Christmas will have a lot to do with eating, as all good family gatherings do Down South. But mostly this holiday will be about memories, those indelible reminders of what it means to be a family. Priceless stories and anecdotes that outlast the food and provide eternal sustenance for those who are eventually left behind. And should it turn out to be Minerva’s last Christmas after all, at least Eliza knows where the clothes are.