Dividing the Spoils

by Skye Moody

Liv Fun: Vol 6 – Issue 4

Is that thunder I hear, or me pounding my head against a doorframe?

Crack. Crack. Crack. Until my niece pulls me away, and by then I’ve bequeathed myself a football player’s concussion.

I don’t remember driving home. Later that evening, my younger sister phones to apologize for what she said, cruel words that triggered the head-banging, sparking such emotional trauma I need to injure myself physically in order to divert the source, and nature, of the pain itself.

I cannot speak, let alone think. I want to take the phone, tell her I forgive her, that I love her, and understand we’re all grieving, none of us are thinking clearly. But the concussion has rendered me as vocal and animated as a piece of the furniture.

Did I mention furniture?

Of course, that’s why I have a concussion. Our mother has recently passed away, and the three daughters, per Mother’s explicit directive, have swooped down on the sprawling ancestral home to arrive before the stepdaughters, lest non-blood relations grab the haul and abscond. As if. Her two sons are welcome to also join in this morbid rite — colloquially dubbed “dividing the spoils” — but wisely choose to absent themselves; there’s plenty to go around, even in the trickle down.

Her possessions seem to sough as we enter the vacated house. Ancestral booty, furniture and important paintings already antiques by the mid-19^th century, heaps of sterling silver and ornate objets imbue our mother’s personally designed chambers with her brilliant eclectic style, punctuated by occasional fillips of droll humor.

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Liv Fun

by Leisure Care
Winter 2017
View Table of Contents

Life Can Be a Chukker
by Candace Wade

I ride, at age 63, in spite of two hip replacements. I quest for opportunities to mount horses. Then I write about them. This vocation may be “finger nails on the chalkboard” for those whose primary goal past a certain age is to work on their legacy. My credo is to keep my juices flowing by challenging myself. I do it on horseback.

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Dividing the Spoils
by Skye Moody

Is that thunder I hear, or me pounding my head against a doorframe? Crack. Crack. Crack. Until my niece pulls me away, and by then I’ve bequeathed myself a football player’s concussion. I don’t remember driving home. Later that evening, my younger sister phones to apologize for what she said, cruel words that triggered the head-banging.

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How to Live to 120
by Nancy Gertz

At the age of 97, Irving Silverman is emphatic that he’s not done with living. It’s going to take much longer to finish “giving back,” he proclaims. I had the pleasure of interviewing Irving after a recent profile in the Boston Globe featured his new book, Aging Wisely … Wisdom of Our Elders, a compelling collection of essays by 75 seniors and selected experts in aging.

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