Whitney Stone

That Which You Need Most

The funeral was the picture of taste and grotesque wealth. It was equal parts my mother’s intricate, overbearing hand and my stepfather’s wallet. That’s what a long-term battle with cancer affords you: the gift of micromanaging your own farewell. The chapel stank of lilies, my mother’s namesake and favorite flower. Personally, I think they smell like a urinal, but nobody asked me. Naturally, it was her dying wish that I take home the most obnoxious of the arrangements, her last opportunity to saddle me with a reminder that I wasn’t her, that I’d never be her.