The funeral wasn't a funeral. Aunt Rosalie had insisted that we have aarty in her honor, rather than sit around and gloom out about here being gone. I was glad for this. It seemed inappropriate at times to me and all the time to other people, but it was what she wanted and I knew I'd be thankful in the end by doing it her way.
"She even left a playlist," said Magda. " your aunt Rosalie thought of everyone before herself. She didn't want you to have to go through any of the planning or the burial decisions or anything. She was so prepared."
"Maybe she just didn't want to give up control, " I said, and then realized I'd said it aloud. " I didn't mean that," I said, turning to Magda. She was looking at me curiously. She didn't speak for a few minutes and we worked in silence together, folding the colorful napkins that would sit at each place setting.
"It's okay if you did mean it," she said finally. "Sometimes people need to get things off of their chests. No one is perfect, not even the deceased." I looked at her then, because she said this with such conviction, but she had her face turned down and slightly away from me.
I gave up trying to see here expression and looked back at my own work - a pristine out of the package dinner napkin with a creamy background and covered in pale roses. "That is a truth," I said. "No one, not one of us, is perfect," I said.