I still have it after all these years—
a small binder with tabs for each letter of the alphabet.
It reads like a personal history
including all my parents’ aunts and uncles,
first and second cousins in the US and Israel,
nieces, nephews, neighbors,
doctors, a few of her favorite hairdressers,
the ladies who play canasta and gin rummy,
the people who play Scrabble with her
carefully listed under ‘S’.
It’s Mother’s early version of Facebook,
with names crossed out if the people died,
cheated when they played cards,
or didn’t offer her rides to the swim club.
 
At the front of the binder, on the first tab,
she wrote down the names of all the contacts
at her hospice. Her hand was shaky,
she was scared she might suffocate,
the ALS quickly immobilizing her body:
Jacob Perlow Hospice, with phone numbers
for Jill, Lynn, Wesley, Maura—
her nurses, doctor, social worker. At the end,
she wouldn’t have been able to dial a number
or talk to anyone, each word weighed down
by its letters. She would have reached for her
phone book and it would have fallen to the floor,
the rings opening, the pages
flying around the room like silent crows.