Filed on Time

My husband, Stanley, was sick for months before he died in April 2019. Taking care of him, I didn’t have time to prepare our 2018 tax returns. With an extension to October, I sorted through Stanley’s checkbooks and credit card statements. His charges and payments reflected the cruel arc of his illness: Stanley’s business-related expenses plummeted while his medical costs ballooned; his handwriting deteriorated. I relived his death through his taxes. Sometimes those two certainties — death and taxes — intersect in unexpected, heartbreaking ways. By working slowly, I was able to fulfill Stanley’s final obligations. On time. — Zelda R. Stern

A Night Very Different From Others

“Why is this night different from all other nights?” I asked — just as I, the youngest child, did every Passover at my parents’ Seder. What I said next was new: “Because this night, we are married.” Mark and I held up our hands, shiny rings on our fingers. We had eloped that afternoon. This was the first Seder for Mark’s Catholic mother. “Is this part of it?” she asked. “Yes, Mom,” he deadpanned; it was his dry sense of humor that had drawn me to his personal ad two decades earlier. “Every Passover,” Mark joked, “somebody has to get married.” — Wayne Hoffman

The Day the Music Died

I inherited nostalgia from my father. On weekends in Brooklyn, he would play his 78 rpm Ansonia records, drink beer and look forlorn. He’d lose himself in lyrics about “los jíbaros de las montañas,” the noble farmers of the mountains. Humility and dreams would float through the air while my sisters and I rolled our eyes; we couldn’t relate to music about Puerto Rico’s countryside. Once, I came home to my father sitting on the sofa, his records strewn about, cracked into pieces. We never asked; he never explained. The fissures remain. I long to hear those songs. — Sonia Pérez

Shoes Without Laces

Walking through our mudroom, I tripped over my son’s shoes: black slip-on sneakers, chunky-soled loafers, plastic slides. There were beach shoes, school shoes, lawn-mowing shoes. As I wove through the room, I remembered the moment we learned that he would probably never be able to tie his own shoes. When he was a baby, the diagnoses of his epilepsy and intellectual disabilities were like thieves, threatening to steal happiness, normalcy. Now I look at his lace-less shoes and think, “They’ve been stripped of what is unnecessary, just like my son. They’re perfect and complete, just like him.” — Susan Hall

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