Jeannette Cooperman at The Common Reader:
Fussier friends would shiver in the mid-October wind, but Ann Mandelstamm is in her eighties and still hiking, so I grab a table on the patio. Just as I open the menu, she arrives, clad in a sporty navy sweater and jeans and wearing her trademark red lipstick, her red-gold hair pulled back with combs. She sits, her movements as lithe and graceful as ever. She has always had a quiet, midcentury glamour about her—the Kate Hepburn sort, impatient with frippery. Neither of us even mentions moving indoors.
It is good to see her; it has been more than a year. She is animated and fun, teasing the server as she orders: “I had authority in my voice, didn’t I? I used to teach high school.” We talk about books and, with a sigh, politics, then split a pizza. Somehow Ann has always managed to go deep—think hard, read tough stuff, fight for justice—yet remain delighted by the world.
As the plates are whisked away, she says, “I have something for you,” and hands me a sheet of paper. “Not many people know,” she says. “I’m going to mail this to my dearest friends just before.”
“Before….?” I smile and take the sheet, wondering what she is up to. Skimming, I catch phrases: not something I arrived at without deliberation…. I have lived my life as well as I could…. limited resources on this planet…. what purpose could I serve by living on another five or ten years?
She has decided to end her life.
My mind goes blank with shock.
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