Written for this week’s Writing Challenge at the Daily Post.  Prompt:  Leftovers.  Thanks for reading.  Visit the Writing Challenge for more wonderfully bloggy posts–fact and fiction–in response to the prompt.

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At my mother’s funeral, an older man, goateed and wearing a beret (the sight of which made me turn away just long enough to roll my eyes), asked me what she was like, really like. “She watched a lot of Murder, She Wrote,” I said, and the man frowned. So I added, “She was very generous.” He nodded and smiled, satisfied.

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She was generous: I am the sole heir to a 1920s bungalow on the coast. The living room, kitchen, dining room, bedrooms, and bathrooms are spotless. Beds made, clothes folded, dishes cleaned. I don’t remember her being a neat freak but I do remember her not wanting to burden anyone. It makes perfect sense to me that…