Estate planning

Who are we after we bury our mothers?

Do we attain serenity, finally?
Is it a big-step metabolic passage to equal the revolutions of adolescence, marriage and parenthood?
Does all of our hair fall out overnight?

Do we break into bloom once our dear mothers are gone? Do we "come into our own"?

Or is this the crisis when orphaned older ladies kick over the traces and run off with Habitat for Humanity or Peace Corps?
No, wait. That's what happens after the spouse dies.

There aren't two categories under Bildungsroman. There aren't also coming of age novels devoted to Life After Mom.
No, because we think we know what comes next, and nobody likes to look at it: definite old age. Not just "that age used to be considered old" or "I can't tell how old she is" but, for sure, "that's an old person, right there. That person is too old to have a mother alive on this earth."

That old person is in charge now?
That old person must know some answers?

Or, that old person will soon be a drag on society. Stand up, you clod, and help that old person take a seat on the bus. Get out of the way everybody, old lady coming through. Stand clear of the cane, please.

That old person is regretting the remains of the day. Sad.
Or, he's yearning for love and lurking about the schoolyard. Icky. Or, getting it on like the geezers in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel or Terms of Endearment. Cute.

Are these the only options — cute, sad, icky, wise?

What about the stylish figure in black stepping lightly to the lip of a cliff, daring and afraid? Here we stand next in line at the edge, uh, woo-hoo?!
What will the world look like above that precipitate drop? Beautiful, wild? Oblivious, distant?

Is the edge of the cliff where we will finally get perspective on how we have spent our little lives so far and all the choices we have made along the way?

Will we finally be able to see exactly who we have been all along?