Find all my passwords on a yellow legal pad under my laptop; remember last winter Steph wrote my obituary, read it again before you publish it, make sure it is laugh-out-loud funny and don’t pay to publish it in the local paper but instead blast it on social media; remember to update my blog; call the pastor; recall the husky woman from the funeral home off Main Street that we met for lunch, she has my instructions and should make it easy; remember if the twins can’t get home from college before I pass, there’s an option where the mortician will clean me up—just a smidge—and the girls can say goodbye before the crematorium; don’t forget we paid for the feature where the funeral home will make the video collage, make sure to include pics where I’m wearing sunglasses and sporting hair; play “I Lived” by OneRepublic loudly, immediately before the service starts even if it pisses off the pastor; remember it’s not a funeral, it’s a celebration of life—so celebrate (don’t let Tom lead the music); remember to thank my nurse Nicole for the warm blankets in the infusion room and for always being frank with me; ask the girls if they want to say a few words, but don’t force them; my sister Rebecca said she would speak (after a year of thinking about it); be flexible; be kind to my mom and gentle with my dad, they undoubtedly feel helpless and heartbroken, remember they mean well; find a random job for Mom and Dad to keep them from fretting over the girls—they can oversee the flowers or write thank you cards or donate my collection of sweatshirts; don’t let anyone say I lost my battle, every day I lived was a victory; don’t let my parents read my journals ever; actually, this is important, make sure no one reads my journals for at least a year, somedays I wrote nasty, malicious things about well-intentioned people (like when you ran the stop light in my practically brand new car at parents’ weekend) and other times I cursed God and questioned faith; heal before you read the journals; burn them if you think it’s best (by the way, the handwritten love letters we wrote to each other at Purdue are in the bottom of my cedar chest, you might want to destroy them); don’t drink too much Elijah Craig and remember to eat protein; give my fly fishing rod and waders to my sister in Montana but my boots to Rose; give my yellow paddle board to Grace although you’ll probably have to store it in our garage; for the love of God, remember to change the hand towel in the guest bathroom regularly otherwise it smells like sour milk; cash out my life insurance and chase your dreams of buying cattle and land; water the moss regularly, it’s lushness blessed me so much when I was confined to home and I loved feeling it under my feet; find four copies of Devotions by Mary Oliver on the shelf in the guest bedroom with names on them, the copy on the bookshelf in the office has my favorite poems highlighted and tagged, it’s for you; don’t forget the cleaners come on Wednesday so you need to pre-clean on Tuesday; remember the two custom made gifts I bought and hid years ago for Rose and Grace, use them as my final gift whenever it’s appropriate, college graduation or marriage or a damn good promotion at work; return Steph’s 100-mile Umstead necklace to her; fling my ashes across the world but maybe keep a small vial until the pain fades and then scatter the last bit of my dust by our cabin that we bought when everyone else was counting me out; recall that the girls don’t want the ashes in the lake where we swam—be sensitive, it creeps them out; remember to get your hair cut before the service, otherwise your mom or one of my aunts will call you out; hug the girls frequently but give them space to grieve and take the space you need—it won’t be all at once. Remember how at parents’ weekend, after you ran through that stop light, you reached for my hand and squeezed it? Thanks.
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Ann Camden’s articles have appeared in numerous agricultural publications such as Soybean Digest and Agri-Marketing Magazine from her first career. She is a frequent contributor to Wildfire Magazine and numerous cancer-related blogs with an occasional podcast of her writing. She is excited to break into the literary scene and is working on a memoir told through essays. Originally from the Midwest, Ann lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Artwork by Barbara Gillette Price