Nora Ephron

 

Photo by Elena Seibert 

Nora Ephron has been mentioned here many times previously.  I loved all of her writing, but her essay collection, I Feel Bad About My Neck, focusing on aging, holds a special place in my heart.  I read that book while I was on bed rest with our twins.  I was about to become a first-time mother (to multiples) at 35 (almost 36), and I had heard the words "advanced maternal age" bandied about throughout my pregnancy.  In some ways, I felt older than 35, and her essays were especially poignant.  At the very least, her brilliant wit took my mind off of my swollen ankles and horrific heartburn.

Yesterday I ran across Jacob Bernstein's memorial for his mother.  My favorite passage are her thoughts on death:

“The realization that I may have only a few good years remaining has hit me with real force, and I have done a lot of thinking as a result. I would like to have come up with something profound, but I haven’t. I try to figure out what I really want to do every day, I try to say to myself, If this is one of the last days of my life, am I doing exactly what I want to be doing?"

The full article can be found here.