Liz

My mother was flipping through the catalog frantically in her hospital bed.### “I’ve been collecting these miles so I could finally get you something outstanding…..” she looked up and pulled her thinning hair behind her ear. “You’ve always been so outdoorsy, you know.” ### “Yeah, mom.”### “I’ve got a pile of these,” she pointed to a plastic bag full of carefully banded red and white coupons. “Each pack is a hundred miles.”### “Wow, mom.”
“Well, I’m like a millionaire in this catalog,” she said, sitting upright indignantly. “I can order anything I like here…”### Pause.### “Do you want anything?” she asked, like a child whose been caught in the wrong room.### “I want my mother to live long enough to come to my wedding.”### She tossed the catalog onto the floor, tears clogging her voice to a mumble. “Low, Estelle, that was low.”### “Well you can hardly expect me to jump for joy that I can have some tacky trinket in exchange for my mother’s life.” ### “God, you’re so dramatic.”### Picking the catalog up from the floor and handing it to her, I pointed to the page where it had split open. “A thermos, mom, I’d love a thermos.”### “Ok.”### She died 10 days later. The thermos arrived six months after that. It doesn’t make me think of her.###