Afterwards

Fio and her elder son spent most of the afternoon in the funeral home yesterday setting up the burial, which is so complicated by regulations that it won't take place for at least a couple of weeks. It was amazing how many services and trinkets the place offers--for outrageous prices.
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When Fiorella came home from the funeral home, she looked around at husband's precious possessions and realized that not one of them will follow him into the grave. He is dead, gone forever, and Fio is wearing his leather jacket because it is now up for grabs. In days to come, she will distribute his belongings and donate his clothing, put his old recliner out for the trash pick-up, and sell off his riding mower and power tools. She will also deprive him of his most private privacy, going through everything he owned, wrote, or hid in the back of a drawer. And the same thing will happen to her when her times comes--and to all of us.
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Fio has done a fairly good job of keeping herself under control emotionally because she has to be the one to make the hard decisions, but her stiff upper lip wobbles when people are kind to her, like when Mazda sends one of its guys over with the two large flower arrangements that sit on her mostrador de granito. Or her childhood best friend calls her long distance from California. Or her neighbor spends hours repairing her garage door.