IntroductionWhen I was about ten years old, my mother began telling me what a good daughter I had been to her and saying that when she died (which, she always made sure to add, would not happen for a very, very long time), I should harbor no regrets about our relationship. She has reiterated those words periodically over the last thirty-plus years. She has said them during periods when we got along, when we fought, when I was a child, and into my own middle age. She has said them when she really meant them and when it would have been almost impossible to mean them. My mother's own mother died at just about the time she began offering her reassurances to me. And, as she lay in her hospital room with her four daughters gathered about her, my grandmother had said those very same words to them'that she loved them, that they had been wonderful daughters to her, and that they should have no regrets after she passed. I know that my grandmother's words brought enormous comfort to my mother in the years that followed. She hasn't wondered if she should have done or said anything differently during her mother's life.

And while I'm sure she has wished many times that her mother could have known her grandchildren better, attended this or that family event, been available to talk on the phone about life's big and small events, she has never, to my knowledge, regretted any aspect of their relationship. While I didn't make the connection at the time, I now realize that my mother wanted to bestow the gift her mother had given her on me and my siblings as soon as possible. When I was small she only mentioned it now and then, and I barely listened to what she was saying, except to tune in very carefully to the part that went, ?it will not happen for a very, very long time.' Sometimes, depending on the amount of terror she saw on my face, she would add several more ?verys.' As a teenager, I vacillated between moments of painful, gasping terror that she might actually die and a sort of spiteful hope that she would, both of which emotions were immediately followed by numerous superstitious gestures and phrases to counter the effect of my thoughts on her lifespan. I still didn't think she or my dad would ever really die, though. When I was in my twenties, their deaths continued to seem quite impossible, but I began to admit to myself for several seconds at a time that my parents were actually mortal. Then, in my thirties, I began to take the idea seriously.

My younger sister and I admitted to each other that we thought about our parents? death, but all we could do was cry and promise to be there for each other through this unthinkable eventuality. My mother continues every now and then to tell me that I am a good daughter and should have no regrets. But now she's in her seventies, I'm in my forties, and I'm hearing her in a very different way. Suddenly, on some level, it's as if I'm taking these words in for the first time and allowing myself to contemplate them. Have I really been a good daughter? Are there things I'll regret? Are there things she regrets? What will it be like to lose each other? What details and plans do we need to think through? What does she really expect and want from me as she ages and reconciles with life's end? I believe (and hope) that all families can benefit from having such conversations on their own terms and about the issues that are specifically important to them, and so there are no answers in this book'only questions. Each of us will have our own way of engaging our minds, and the minds of our family, in this conversation. Comfort levels will vary from family to family, and from topic to topic within each family. That's as it should be.

For some, this dialogue will be an act of love and affection. For others, it will be about taking care of business and tying up loose ends. Or it may be both. There is clearly no right or wrong here. I encourage each family to rev.