"And do you need a scythe?" she asked, the improbability of such a need alien to her "It's a little rusty." I had, shortly into this gleaning, stopped trying to explain to her why I didn't need another trivet, or a bizarre appliance that holds a slice of bread upright so that it can be sliced in two. A bread slice slicer. No joke. Every attempt to explain that I already had one, had no place to put it, thought it was hideous, was perceived as an invitation to explain the value of the heirloom in question, so, at this latest offering, I simply shook my head with what I hope was a disappointed look, free from all trace of smirking. Grandmother Dody hated smirking.

She clenched the scythe in her gingerroot knuckles and carried it with us to the next room. "Well, perhaps the Owensboro History Museum will want it. I'm sure it's quite old." I found this entire exercise rather macabre, rummaging through the last crumbs of her life. It had only taken her about a month after my Grandfather died to move into the rest home, or as she called it, "The Resort Hotel"--and it might as well have been, considering the expense. She commented every day about how sinful it was to be spending this much money, and even though we could tell she reveled in what she considered well-deserved luxury, she was an alum-soaked, bona fide tightwad. To ease her conscience, she was determined to see that every last one of her newly homeless belongings, every wire hanger, found a new, appreciative owner. This is where I came in.

"How about these candles?" They were bent, pale yellow, and seemed to be made of human earwax. A shake of the head. "No? Well, I'm sure I don't have a place to put them." She paused, giving me a chance to explain myself. Nothing Doing. I had accepted, against my better judgment, some parfait cups and a fire screen, the bare minimum necessary to keep her from thinking I was an ingrateful whippersnapper. It is this skill that has made me the only one of her Grandchildren she can stand. "So respectful," as she describes me to my parents. "Not like his sister."

As we neared my Grandfather's closet, a familiar scent claimed the room. As a youth, I was aware that everything associated with Family or Heritage, had a certain scent, and I began to think of it as "The Payne Family Smell". It was pleasant, reminding me of hiding in the closet with the false back at the old plantation--which my siblings and I called "The Secret Passage". It was clean, crisp, but also warm and friendly, and I considered it part of our family's unique charm. "Do you know how I know that your Great Aunt Betty is related to us?" I once asked my Father. "She has the Payne Family Smell." My Father chuckled as he explained that it was just mothballs.

Grandmother Dody opened the closet and proceeded to offer me my Grandfather's entire wardrobe, a salmagundi of plaids and leather elbow patches that Would make even Charles Nelson Reilly scream in agony. Besides the obvious fashion terror with which the prospect struck me, I found the idea morbid. "I'm sure none of it would fit me," I lamented.

"Not even the socks? Socks fit everybody." I pictured my Grandfather's dead, blue feet on a mortician's steel table.

"And I find it morbid, frankly." Perhaps it was a mistake to say what I really thought, but the words were irretrievable. I waited for her reaction. She put the socks down.

"You're probably right." She picked the scythe back up and we quietly headed for the front door, The Gram Reaper and I.

So far, two of my Grandparents have died, and each death roughly coincided with a new chapter in my own life. My Gramma, my dear sweet Gramma whom I dreamed about even last night, died at about the time I was coming out of the closet. Henry, Dody's husband, passed away this year, just I am settling into my first real relationship and first real job after my amputation. Grandmother Dody is clearly the next to go and I wonder what that year will bring, what her newly homeless life force will empower me to do.