A woman came up to me a few weeks ago and asked me if I had heard the rumor that I had died. I hadn’t. (Hadn’t heard, hadn’t died.)
“It was so strange,” the woman said, gently touching my arm, possibly to make sure I was warm. “I guess there were people who thought you had died because, you know, of your health concerns and all.”
The most troubling thing about this comment — outside of the fact that people thought I was dead — is that they do not read my blog. If they read PaperGirl, they’d see that I am not dead but alive and well in Washington, D.C., about to move to Chicago, and coming to a quilt guild or BabyLock dealership near you. Of course, the blog isn’t necessarily proof of my existence. I could be freshly dead. I might be dead as you read this, in fact, because blogs are not posted in real time. I might have written this, clicked “Publish”, and then choked on a pear. I might be dead in my black leather recliner right now.
It is with this image in mind I’d like to make known my last will and testament. There’s not much to it because I was snatched from life at such a tender age, cruelly ripped from life before my time, felled in my own home by fruit. Why! Why, God!
ACTUAL INSTRUCTIONS ON THE OCCASION OF MY UNTIMELY (OR TIMELY) DEATH
1. Any money I have should be split equally between my sisters. If my sisters are also dead, see the philanthropic projects contained in Instruction No. 2.
2. All my journals go to my friend Joe. Joe, change all the names and publish the journals, preferably with Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. (Second choice: Simon & Schuster.) Put all profits into a foundation that gives scholarships to girls aged 5-17 who want to be professional writers. If after reading my journals no parents will allow their child to be associated with a scholarship I founded, please create an orphanage for wayward girls.
3. Give my clothes to someone who will wear them. They’re fabulous!
4. Any money that would be spent on an urn, a casket, pine box, opulent funeral, etc., is to be put into a fund to create a Mary Fons Memorial Arch. The arch doesn’t have to be weight-bearing, it doesn’t have to be in a high-traffic area, but I have always loved a great memorial arch.
5. Bury me/burn me up with Pendennis.
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