How to Love Me After I’m Gone: A Semi-Organized Guide

Compost me gently and don't forget to water the Schefflera.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

---

👻 SUMMER RERUN ALERT 👻
Because it’s July and I believe in reusing both plastic take out containers and content, I’m dusting off this old favorite — a love letter to my family, my fungus gnats, and the logistics of my eventual decomposition.

If you missed it the first time, welcome. If you read it already, read it again and pretend you're just being thorough.

💙 Like it
🔁 Restack it
💬 Say something in the comments so I don’t have to haunt you

---

Look, I don’t believe I’m going to die. Not really. I’ve done the obligatory paperwork: a will, health directive, and power-of-attorney with vague instructions about plucking my chin hairs if I’m ever unconscious in a hospital bed. Let’s be honest, that was mostly to boost my adulting credentials.

I am firmly in denial.

I’ve promised my kids I’ll live to 100, and I don’t like breaking promises. I'm not exactly a triathlete or biohacker, but I come from hearty, stubborn stock and have only mild creakiness. With any luck, Death will overlook me entirely, like that unopened insurance letter under a pile of expired CVS receipts.

By my calculations, and I’m using girl math here, I have a full 38 years to fritter away. But…

There’s a whisper that I’ve been pretending not to hear. You know it: the “what if you get hit by a rogue Amazon delivery truck tomorrow” voice. I've lost people too soon. You've lost people too soon. We know the truth: everything passes. Including us.

So, like every human who’s ever tried to make peace with the inevitable, I sat down to write something vaguely obituary-adjacent. Inspired by Ann Camden’s poignant essay Final Affairs, this is less a formal death notice and more one last way to order my husband around.

Dear Husband,

Truly, this whole dying thing has blindsided me. Let’s start with the things I wish I hadn’t left you.

First, let’s talk about that fortress of forgotten stuff in the basement — your junk, my junk, and a few mystery items that might belong to neither of us.

Specifically, the dusty photo boxes I inherited from my mother.

I always said I’d go through them, which was a lie so flimsy it didn’t even hold up under polite conversation. I never wanted to. Those brittle boxes were landmines: trips to Germany and destinations unknown, photos from my first wedding (yes, lots of photos of the ex), and childhood bangs I’d rather not revisit.

So now it's your problem.

But here’s the silver lining: you don’t have the same emotional booby traps I did. You can discard freely. Still, before you toss everything into a contractor bag, dig out the sepia-toned photos with the crinkly white edges. Those strange faces? Ancestors. The kids may not care now, but one day, when they’re bored and forty, they’ll want to know where their high foreheads came from.

Also, FYI: all the old photos are from my mom’s side. As for my dad’s side of the family — good luck. He was a refugee with no surviving photos or records, which means the Ancestry tree leans heavily maternal. I started it with gusto, then ghosted it like I do all things requiring patience.

As for the shoeboxes of glossy prints in yellow Kirkland sleeves? Blame the '90s. I took so many pictures of the kids because, well, look at them. They were delicious. I was obsessed with every angle of their precious faces.

I hope they know they were always loved, even in the messy moments, like that Halloween when Eric, stood next to his smiling sisters, dressed up in a Phillies jersey and holding his bat, looking ready to burst into tears.

That photo breaks my heart and makes me smile, all at once.

Speaking of Eric: No, his baby book wasn’t finished. So sue me. (I’m dead, remember?) He’s the third kid. He’s lucky we remember his birthday. I tried to give him the same attention the girls got by buying absurdly expensive scrapbooking supplies, which sat untouched, a testament to the seductive power of craft stores.

I want the kids to know I know I wasn’t perfect (in case there is any doubt). I wish I had yelled less, breathed more, and been better at living in the now. But I loved them like crazy and did my best. I hope my best was good enough.

Oh! About my passwords.

There's no master list. They're scattered in a navy spiral notebook, possibly in the margins, possibly written backwards in code only Younger Me understood. But the real treasure map is my laptop. Just ask Google Password Manager. It knows more about me than I do at this point, and and it’s already sold that info to an algorithm in Luxembourg.

The valuables? Covered in the will. But a warning to you as their stepfather: emotions may run hot with the girls. You missed the tumultuous years of stealing each other’s clothes and makeup. They might fall into old patterns and squabble over the crocheted chicken I got in Greece.

Do not let this happen.

Remind them that I am literally one with the earth now. The tchotchkes don’t matter. Their love for each other does.

If anyone needs a visual aid, imagine a hearse with a roof rack.

The Plants

You hated them for a long time.

But I loved them, fungus gnats and all. Please don't pitch them with Monday’s trash while break-dancing. Offer them up to the girls, to your sisters, to any sweet soul who doesn’t flinch at sticky leaves or mysterious webbing.

Particularly the big schefflera in the corner. That old girl’s been through hell: infestations, scale, multiple relocations — basically the plant version of a country music song. She deserves a retirement home. Whoever takes her should also take the blue bottle in the laundry room labeled “For Treatment of Shrubs and Bushes.” That stuff works miracles.

The plants nobody claims? Bury them in the garden. Let the worms rejoice.

There’s something poetic about me decomposing alongside my chlorophyll-rich friends. I was red-blooded, they were green-blooded, and now we’re all going back to the same dirt.

The Most Important Thing

Tell the kids: they owe me nothing. They don’t have to keep my stuff. They don’t have to wear my sweaters or use my mugs. I don’t want guilt haunting them.

They don’t have to do what I would’ve wanted. I want them to be free! To live big, beautiful, weird lives with as few plastic bins as possible.

I’m glad it’s you, my dear husband, tasked with this impossible job. You always were the better executor. Maybe Anne will lend a hand if she’s not on the beach, group texting, or emotionally coaching the Michigan offense from her phone.

How to Remember Me

We never quite nailed down funeral plans. But if it’s up to me, compost me. I like the idea of returning to the earth gently like a whisper instead of a blaze.

Then go out to eat. Tell inappropriate jokes (that’s your wheelhouse). Toast to the old times. And picture me wrapping you in a ridiculous cosmic blanket woven from love, dandelion fluff, and all the crumbs I left in the butter dish.

The poet Andrea Gibson passed recently and wrote:

“I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined.”

That’s what I want. Not haunting — just hovering, a friendly presence in the ethers.

Writing this has shifted something. I started in denial. I end in peace. Or at least, resignation with flair.

Just know: I’m listening. So speak kindly about me. Or at least make it funny.

I loved you. I still do. Always will.

---