Very early on in the quarantine my mother (who I now live with, again) dramatically burst into my room while gesturing widly, “I need you to join me on this Zoom call with my estate attorney. Evidently if I die and you die without a will, everything you own will go to your father who is your last living relative. I need you to draw up a will because I don’t want that fucker to get anything.”

To which I said, “I don’t own anything.”

“I know,” said my mother, “but come in here anyway.”

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my death but I do spend a great deal of time considering what the end of my life will look like. I’m an only child who comes from a long line of only children and if it’s not immediately obvious, I do not know my father. When my grandmother was dying both my mother and I were there to take care of her. We were there the moment she died, both of us holding each of her hands after arguing about something ridiculous only moments before. I maintain my grandmother chose that moment to die because it was the first normal thing my mother and I had done in months since my grandmother’s decline. 

When I’m dying my mother will probably already be dead and unless I decide to dust off my few remaining eggs and take them for a very questionable spin, I won’t have any children. It’s okay, I don’t want them! I’m not afraid of dying but I’m slightly worried about how I’m going to get there. Clearly the plan is to live out the rest of my days in a Golden Girls style house with a gay man featured in the pilot who mysteriously disappears for the rest of the show (Where did he go?). Ya know a closet filled with shoulder pads and a kitchen hemorrhaging cheesecake. 

My house will be filled with items my grandmother and mother left me and someday my body will just drop and according to my wishes, will make its way to a mausoleum in New Orleans (I specified this in my will). While making my will I made sure to leave my dog to someone I trusted (if this death should happen sooner rather than later), along with some money to care for her. I also divided up any remaining money (lol this money will be whatever my mom leaves me because, remember, I own nothing) between the daughter of a friend I have known since she was a baby (she is now 15), the son of a friend I have known since he was a baby (he is now 2) and various nonprofit organizations. I don’t believe I said dick all about everything else I own.

In all likelihood an estate sale will be organized. Those profits will probably be split between the folks/organizations listed in my will. I have never been to an estate sale before, until two weeks ago when I suddenly decided to Google “estate sales near me.”

The one closest to me was about 20 minutes away in Bethesda. The next day was its last and the items for sale were described as, “once owned by a forensic scientist.” I saw the words “human skull” and whispered “Ah, here I am.”

I got up early the next day and was there an hour after it started. The house was beautiful and packed. I walked in and asked a man behind a cash register, “Where is the weird stuff?” He said most of it is gone but you could find a piece here and there. I walked around and started to feel a bit like a vulture. I occasionally asked a stranger if they felt bad, weird, like a voyeur. People were opening up drawers and rifling through them. It was intimate and intrusive. Everything was for sale, even the bath towels still hanging in the bathroom. I wondered aloud if the man who lived here also died here. No one knew.

I wondered aloud if the man who lived here also died here. No one knew.

Unfortunately the human skulls were gone but I passed a sketch of a breast attached to a metal frame of some kind. I didn’t really absorb what it was until I walked by it three more times. I finally took a step back from it and realized the piece was more than tits the eye. A plaster hand was holding onto a hanger, which was attached to a metal outline of the human body. The boob sketch was one breast while a metal breast was the other. I gasped, grabbing it while turning to a man to inexplicably let him know breasts are beautiful which is why I have two! I handed it to the cashier to hold onto.

The next piece I bought was a statue of a little girl holding onto a plate. She’s clutching a spoon as she’s about to eat a spider on the plate. “I would have children if I knew they would turn out like this,” I thought. So I stashed that as well. Knowing that was really all I could afford I continued my stroll around the house.

Slowly my feelings of disrespect gave way to the idea that in death I was getting to know this man. I knew that he traveled often and wherever he went he bought a set of china. Based on the decent collection of cookbooks in his kitchen, he enjoyed Italian food. He loved older Victorian furniture, the kind that looks great but feels like shit to sit on. His closet contained mostly dress shirts and shoes, with ties, and a Valentino jacket. This person was stylish and appreciated nice things. One room was filled with nothing but pieces from Japan. Maybe that was his favorite country to visit?

The basement was clearly the place where the relaxing happened. An old Victrola record player stood opposite a bookshelf filled with books, mostly in Spanish. There were children’s toys there. Maybe he had grandkids? Finally, this is where he was hiding all of the comfortable furniture. Thank God. 

We grapple with the idea of being too materialistic but what I learned at the estate sale was that it was these very materials that were telling someone’s story long after they were gone. And as other people were buying them, his story became their story and so on and so forth. That means one day someone may walk through my home and think “She loved horror movies, Back to the Future, her family and friends, pets from then and now, antique furniture that was passed down, history, vampires, and for some confusing reason…Freddy Krueger.”

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