stupid things, things I had no intention of doing. So I was very disturbed to discover that death could find me, too. According to my source, if I was "lucky," my death would happen the same way my grandfather did. Old. Smelling of pipe smoke and farts, with wads of tissue stuck to the stubble above his upper lip from blowing his nose. Black lines of dirt under his fingernails from gardening; eyes turning yellow at the corners, reminding me of the marble from my uncle's collection that my sister had a habit of sucking and swallowing, causing my father to come running over to throw his arms around her belly and squeeze her until she spat the marble back out. Old. Brown pants pulled up high on his waist, stopping just above his flabby, woman-like chest, revealing a soft paunch and testicles squeezed tight to one side of the crotch of his pants. Old. No, I didn't want to die like my grandfather had, but dying old, my source revealed, was the best alternative. I learned of my impending death from Kevin, my older cousin, on the day of Grandpa's funeral, as we sat on the grass at the bottom of his long yard with plastic cups of red lemonade in our hands and as far away as possible from our grieving parents, who looked more like dung beetles on what was the hottest day of the year. The grass was covered with dandelions and daisies and much longer than usual, since Grandpa's illness had prevented him from tending his garden in the last weeks of his life. I remember feeling sad for him, and wanting to defend him too, since, of all the days to show off his beautiful garden to his neighbors and friends, on this day the plants were not as perfect as he had always aspired. He wouldn't have minded not being there-he wasn't much of a talker-but he would have at least cared about the yard's appearance, and then disappeared to hear the praise from afar, away from everyone, perhaps upstairs through an open window. He would have pretended not to care, but he did care, a satisfied smile on his face to match his grass-stained knees and blackened fingernails. Someone, an old lady with a rosary of beads wound tightly around her knuckles, said she felt him in the garden, but I didn't. I was sure he wasn't there. He would have been so irritated by the way the garden looked that he couldn't have stood there. My grandmother would punctuate the silence with phrases like, "His sunflowers are in bloom, bless his soul," and "He couldn't even see the petunias bloom." To which my smart-ass cousin Kevin said, "Yeah, his body's turned into compost now." Everyone snickered; Everyone always laughed at the things Kevin said because Kevin was cool, because Kevin was the oldest, five years older than me, and at the ripe old age of ten, he would say cruel and mean things that no one else would dare say. Even if we didn't find it funny, we still had to laugh because if we didn't, he would quickly turn us into the object of his cruelty, and that's what he did to me that day. On that rare occasion, I didn't find it funny that Grandpa's dead body was underground and helping the petunias grow, nor did I find it cruel. I saw a certain beauty in it. And a lovely fullness and justice, too. It was exactly what my grandfather would have loved, now that his thick sausage-like fingers could no longer contribute to the blooming of his long, beautiful garden that was the center of his universe. It was my grandfather's love of gardening that inspired the choice of my name: Jasmine. This was what he brought to my mother in the hospital when I was born: a bouquet of flowers he had plucked from the wooden frame he had built himself and painted red that adorned the shadowy back wall, wrapped in newspaper and tied with brown string, the ink from the Irish Times crossword puzzle dripping with rainwater that had gotten on the stems. It wasn't the summer jasmine we all know from expensive scented candles and fancy room vaporizers; I had been born in winter, and so the little jasmine, with its small, yellow flowers like stars, was in abundance in his garden to help brighten the dull winter. I don't think my grandfather ever thought about the meaning of the flower, or whether he felt particularly honored by my mother's honor in naming me after the flower he had brought. I think it was a strange name for a child to give him, a name he had only ever invented for natural things in the garden, never for a person. With a name like Adalbert, after a saint who had been a missionary
Chapter 1 I started my professional
quickly turn us into the object of his cruelty, and that's what he did to me that day. On that rare occasion, I didn't find it funny that Grandpa's dead body was underground and helping the petunias grow, nor did I find it cruel. I saw a certain beauty in it. And a lovely fullness and justice, too. It was exactly what my grandfather would have loved, now that his thick sausage-like fingers could no longer contribute to the blooming of his long, beautiful garden that was the center of his universe. It was my grandfather's love of gardening that inspired the choice of my name: Jasmine.
This was what he brought to my mother in the hospital when I was born: a bouquet of flowers he had plucked from the wooden frame he had built himself and painted red that adorned the shadowy back wall, wrapped in newspaper and tied with brown string, the ink from the Irish Times crossword puzzle dripping with rainwater that had gotten on the stems. It wasn't the summer jasmine we all know from expensive scented candles and fancy room vaporizers; I had been born in winter, and so the little jasmine, with its small, yellow flowers like stars, was in abundance in his garden to help brighten the dull winter. I don't think my grandfather ever thought about the meaning of the flower, or whether he felt particularly honored by my mother's honor in naming me after the flower he had brought. I think it was a strange name for a child to give him, a name he had only ever invented for natural things in the garden, never for a person. With a name like Adalbert, after a saint who had been a missionary to Ireland, and Mary as his middle name, he was not used to names that did not come from the Bible. The previous winter, he had bought purple heather for [1] my mother when my sister was born and she was named Heather. A simple gift when my sister was born, but it made me wonder what his intentions were for my name. In doing some research, I discovered that winter jasmine is a direct relative of the winter-flowering heather-another provider of color for winter gardens. I don't know if it was because of him or the way he was, but I have always believed hopefully that quiet people have a magic and knowledge that less restrained people do not have; that the fact that they do not say something means that more important thoughts are going on in their heads. Perhaps that apparent simplicity contained a hidden mosaic of fantastic thoughts, and among them my grandfather Adalbert wanting me to be named Jasmine. Back in the garden, Kevin had mistaken my lack of laughter at his joke about death as disapproval, and there was nothing he hated or feared more, so he turned his wild gaze on me and said, "You're going to die, too, Jasmine." Sitting in a circle of six, I, the youngest of the group, with my sister spinning by herself a few feet away and loving to get dizzy and fall to the ground, a daisy chain tied around my ankle, and a lump in my throat so big I wasn't sure if I'd swallowed one of the giant bees swarming around the flower buffet next to us, I tried to comprehend the fact of my impending demise. The others were shocked that he'd said that, but instead of defending me and denying this premonition-like statement, they gave me a sad look and nodded. "Yes, it's true," they all agreed with that one look. "You're going to die, Jasmine." In my long silence, Kevin hatched an even more horrific plan for me, driving the knife even deeper. Not only would I die, but before that, I would have something called a period every month for the rest of my life, which would cause excruciating pain and agony. Then I learned how babies were made, in a description so in-depth that I found it so horrifying that I could barely look my parents in the eye for a week, and then, to rub salt in my open wound, I learned that Santa Claus didn't exist. You try to forget things like that, but I couldn't. And why am I talking about this episode in my life? Well, it was where I started. Where I, as I know myself, as everyone knows me, was formed. My life began when I was five years old. Knowing that I was going to die instilled something in me that I still carry with me to this day: the awareness that, although time was infinite, my time was finite, my time was running out. I realized that my time and someone else's were not the same thing. We cannot spend this hour in the same way, nor can we think about it in the same way. Do what you will with yours, but don't drag me along with you; I have no time to waste. If you want to do something, you have to do it now. If you want to say something, then you have to say it now. And most of all, you have to do it yourself. It's your life, you're the one who's going to die, you're the one who's going to lose. So I got used to getting things done, to making things happen. I worked at a pace that often left me breathless, and I barely had a moment to regroup with myself. I ran after me a lot, but I rarely caught up; I was fast. I took a lot of things with me from that meeting on the grass that night, and not just the daisies that hung from my wrists and ankles and were woven into my hair as we followed the sunburned mourners back home. My heart was full of fear, but before long, in the way only a five-year-old could process it all, the fear went away. I had always thought of death as my grandfather Adalbert Mary underground, still tending the garden even though he wasn't there, and I felt hope. You reap what you sow, even in death. And so I began to plant. Chapter 2 I was laid off from my job, I was fired, six weeks before Christmas-which, in my opinion, is a pretty undignified time to get rid of someone. They had hired a woman to fire me for them, one of those third-party agencies trained in firing employees properly, to avoid scandal or a lawsuit or their own embarrassment. She had taken me to lunch somewhere quiet, let me order a Caesar salad and ordered just a black coffee, and then sat there practically watching me choke on a crouton while she informed me of my new employment situation. I think Larry knew I wouldn't accept his news, or anyone else's, and that I would try to talk him out of it, that I would slap him with a kid glove with a lawsuit or just slap him in the face. He would try to let me die with honor, except that I didn't feel much honor in leaving. Being fired is a public matter, I would have to tell others. And if I didn't have to tell others, it was because they already knew. I died of shame. I started my professional life as an accountant. At the tender age of twenty-four I started working for Trent & Bogle, a large firm where I stayed for a year, and then I moved abruptly to Start It Up, where I provided financial advice and guidance to individuals who wanted to start their own businesses. With most of them, I had learned that there are always two sides to every story: the public version and the truth. The story I tell to others is that eighteen months later I quit my job to start my own business. I was so inspired by the people who walked through my office that the desire to turn my own ideas into reality grew stronger. The truth is, I got fed up with seeing people doing things the wrong way, with my drive for
Chapter 1 I started my professional
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Chapter 2 my food
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Chapter 3 dislike about people
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Chapter 4 we've renovated everything
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Chapter 5 twenty-four
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Chapter 6 look back
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Chapter 7 alternative therapies
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Chapter 8 called
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Chapter 9 relative competition
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Chapter 10 surprisingly
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Chapter 11 patient for your show
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Chapter 12 this morning
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Chapter 13 if our friend
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Chapter 14 two weeks
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Chapter 15 I can't see it
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Chapter 16 beautiful
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Chapter 17 protecting me
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Chapter 18 I'm either paranoid
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Chapter 19 memory
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Chapter 20 that he's back
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Chapter 21 the Dumpster
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Chapter 22 to sell the company
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Chapter 23 because I want to joke
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Chapter 24 You're killing me
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Chapter 25 two months ago
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Chapter 26 I can think twice
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Chapter 27 want to see any more
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Chapter 28 you say
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Chapter 29 I feel silly
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Chapter 30 This is my sister
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Chapter 31 taekwondo
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Chapter 32 the enthusiasm
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Chapter 33 focused
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Chapter 34 it's a symbol
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Chapter 35 To break everything
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Chapter 36 the first time
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Chapter 37 they're fifteen
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Chapter 38 Really
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Chapter 39 said to you tonight
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Chapter 40 this information
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