A Double-Life Mom?

Oh, the things you find after your mother passes away...

If you subscribe here (and, really, why wouldn’t you?) you know that my mom, Betty Crum, died last week at the age of 84. We knew it was coming, but that didn’t make it any easier. And it shouldn’t be easy when your mom passes away.

Of course, when any family member dies, that’s when the real work begins. And that includes going through the personal effects of the deceased. Sometimes, you’ll find things that need to explanation, like the photos of her grandchildren that mom kept in her wallet.

And then there are the things things that you can’t help but wonder about.

Like…A Ziplock bag containing five, spent rifle shells that my aunt (and, my mom’s twin sister) found shoved in the back of my mom’s sock drawer…

Look…I’m not trying to make light of my mom’s recent passing, but…

I’m wondering if, just maybe, mom led a secret double-life as a professional hitman in between her trips to the Costco pharmacy…I mean, she had the perfect cover. No one would expect “Miss Betty”, who toddled along with cane and never drove on the freeway, to be a button-pusher for hire. Or freelance as a “contractor” for the CIA or the Mossad.

What the hell was mom up to in her spare time? She was white-haired little old lady who liked butterscotch milkshake, petunias, garden gnomes and (much to her, and our heartache), the Seattle Mariners. She never owned a firearm in her life…And, as far as I know, she never fired anything that had a higher caliber than a Daisy BB gun.

And this was just what we found in the sock drawer. I can’t wait to see what the attic holds…