My wife came into the kitchen after getting the mail, both hands held behind her back. “Which hand?” she asked. I picked her right hand, and she gave me an envelope with a check from my late aunt’s estate. I couldn’t have guessed wrong, because there was another one just like it in her other hand.
One of them is for my brother in Tucson. This is the guy with a free house who couldn’t make seventeen grand last six months. Well, that isn’t very much, is it? But the terms of our aunt’s trust are embarrassing. I’m supposed to hold onto his share and pay it out to him in five annual installments if he passes a yearly battery of drug tests! Oh sure. The man is sixty-two. Even from the grave, they meddle, but the grave is where they are.
No more hand-outs, either. That’s the last of the inheritances from that lot. We’re down to siblings and cousins now. I’m down to me. It’s weird, though. There was always someone older, or the possessions of someone older, to occupy a certain space, and now there isn’t. This is the part where I either die or paint my masterpiece, and I feel fine.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
Old Auntie was a wise woman.
Hey, Mike! Could be. “Wise” was never a word I applied to her—way too bossy—but in the case of my brother’s share, could be! 🙂 She did have one hell of a life. A great lady, for sure.
In my family we are losing all the old people. We took care of both my mom and dad when they were at their end. All their friends are gone. It’s sad that we are running out of old people and a bit disturbing that the reality is our generation is next in line. Sure does make you think.
With my own dysfunctional background, this new era is actually kind of welcome in some ways. I don’t find it sad, but I also don’t fully grasp it yet. It’s really big.
John, is the shadow of the person waving near the door that of the postman – or did JC Himself pay you and Mrs. Farr an unannounced visit?
That’s me. 🙂
I really this photo! Nice!
really enjoy..;)
Thank you! 🙂
John, may I call you John? Just a quick note to tell you how much I enjoy your tales of family, marriage, and life in the wilds of New Mexico, a state my better half and I greatly enjoy. I start my day with a cuppa and your posts. Have read your books (twice over the years). Hang in there and keep ’em coming…and P.S. your missus is a saint.
Always good to hear comments like this. Watch for an announcement of something new I’m launching, BTW.
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