A Wrapped Up Life

Who or what do we wrap up for?

This time of year, I’ll find myself twisting my torso into nooks and corners of my closet to reach for a warm wrap. The closet cannot contain the many shapes and sizes I seek: a soft purple knit poncho purchased in San Antonio, a buttery yellow vest bought in New Orleans’ French Market, an august gold sweater wrap picked up at Fred Meyer on the Oregon Coast, a fine knit russet wrap from the Amalfi Coast. The list goes on.

The word wrap is on my mind as mornings switch my internal thermostat over to cold.

However, the wrap in question is not the version you toss around shoulders when goosebumps run up your neck. I’m more interested in what it means to wrap a life when it cannot be boxed, bowed, or gifted? And how those two meanings intertwine?

When my first husband’s diagnosis was deemed terminal, he planned for the eventuality, including the completion of a book left behind for his son, and sharing important words with his parents. My father died of Parkinson’s and offered his advice like the Godfather on his deathbed. “You kids be good to one another,” he said, and gifted his car to my older sister in need. Had my mother articulated her ending, her last words might have been, “Save some for leftovers,” and she would have single-handedly found a way to smooch all her grandchildren.

These instances are not unlike Kate Bowler, author of Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. At first, she thought, “My job is to figure out how to wrap this up.” She stopped having fights with people in case she died. She didn’t want anyone to feel bad. She also wanted to write this “ridiculous history book.”

She could maybe finish her work and “wrap things up,” like my father, who weeded every last dandelion in his yard or like me, intent on returning every text.

Given a year to live, she decided if her last, best gift was a unwieldly book to leave behind, her time was well spent. It turned out not to be about productivity, but what propelled her. Her decision was based on wanting to be “for” something. She didn’t mean living only for oneself, but for the sake of love or fun, or because we can do something, or we’ve never done it before. For the glory of universe or because we’re afraid of the unknown.

I have so many projects that fall into similar categories as Kate’s, along with my actual writing work. If I attained dual Italian citizenship, if my mother’s handwritten recipes were bound together with stories and anecdotes from our kitchen table, if my novel was complete, if my feet could touch the entire coastline of Oregon, would my life then be a wrap? I suppose. I am all “for” any of these above.

I am also “for” my physical wraps. The colorful, comfy array alone represents a completed life. These wraps have been gathered like gemstones from some of the most precious places in the world to me. And should I never travel anywhere again, trapped inside those yarns are the stories that would blanket me in the end.

Thinking back my mother, as her memory failed more and more, she let go of her many day-to-day worries. Inching closer to the perfect state of being. In examining her life and old notes I’ve found from before dementia settled in, she had wrapped up her work, what she was for. She had always been for her children.

We are a many-layered people, wrapped in fat cells, muscle, wrinkles, and various life experiences. As much as my skin tone or thick thighs resemble my mother, what I am for is to give up trying to be her. Besides, she never liked the rain while I would bathe in it, an excuse to later turn toward my closet for a favorite snuggly cover-up and sit with my contentedness, words, and tea.

My mother let go of layers needing to be shed. Would a wrap on my life be accepting and loving those layers I acquired?