Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

a (mostly) true story

[Throwback Thursday excerpt from Life Begins When The Kids Leave Home And The Dog Dies]

For more humor, kids, pets, death, and other (mostly) funny stuff, please check out my new book! [click on image for previews, reviews, and buy links from Amazon]

When she turned fifty, my mother took up a new career: dying. It was a family tradition, she explained. “People in my family don’t make it out of their fifties. So we have to be ready to go.”

Each Christmas, she announced, would probably be her last—no point in a real tree or all that decorating. Her grandchildren would nod, and go right on dragging in and decorating a huge tree, around which our even more huge family would celebrate as usual, with Mother baking, making up beds, passing around Baileys Irish Cream, and loving every second of the noise and mess…