The Envelope

I remember getting the envelope, knowing it was important, despite not knowing what was in it. I’d been in Ottawa a year or two, toiling away at a temporary job, spending on a Visa I couldn’t really afford, but hopeful that one of those lucrative, “cushiony” government jobs would land right on my lap in the near future.

My parents were on their annual visit to the city. They always stayed at a nice hotel, where we would indulge at the best restaurants. I might pay for a lunch or two, but they would foot the bill the rest of the time. Dad would ask generally about the job prospects but never wanted to know specifics. Mom was always more interested in the social aspect, asking questions like whether I was meeting other people, going out for beers with co-workers, or joining clubs. Eventually, the conversation veered back to the mysterious envelope that they’d given me, apparently for safe keeping.

“You’d better get a safety deposit box, if you don’t already have one”, dad said in his usual gruff manner. I barely know what one was, using my bank only to make the bimonthly cheque deposits and make the biweekly cash withdrawals at the ubiquitous IBMs. I agreed to rent a box as requested. There was a long silence as I recall, each of us gorging on our meal. Breaking the silence, I asked: “So what is actually in that envelope that requires me to keep it in such a safe place”? Dad looked at me blankly, like he could not believe I’d asked such a dumb question. He’d just assumed that I knew exactly what was in the mystery envelope.

“There are copies of our wills in there, along with lists of all of our assets…and now that you’re a working fellow, you need to have this material for when we die”. The simple phrase “when we die” resonated with me long after the meal was consumed, the visit had concluded. It was almost like I had been trapped in some kind of delusional dream prior to that, where their mortality wasn’t something that would ever happen. I had read that we live in a death-denying culture, and the thought of preparing my own will seemed like a frivolous exercise, but once I’d dutifully opened the safety deposit box, and handed the envelope over to the bank, my own dimwitted delusional denial dream dissipated like fog on the river. I went back to spending foolishly on my Visa, likely triggered by the carpe diem that hits when you realize that your time with loved ones is finite.