She’d devoted the previous weekend to cleaning out her recently deceased mother-in-law’s condo. Rather than sell it, she and her husband were having their newly graduated from college daughter move in. Before she could, grandma’s personal effects needed to be removed.

This woman had known her mother-in-law for 25 years. They’d gotten along well. But when she cleared out her home, she was, well, disappointed.

“I found myself looking for more — for some deeper insight into who she was,” she said.

She continued to explain that her mother-in-law was the epitome of organization. Her house was clean and orderly. So had been her life.

But wasn’t there more to her, she had wondered? She wasn’t looking for revelations of, oh, an illegitimate child or secret affair, but she’d hoped to find some things she could connect to her by — words of wisdom, or letters — anything that might have provided a deeper window into her heart and soul.

But what was on the surface matched what was hidden away in the drawers and closets. She found nothing unexpected — or personal.

“That’s why I write letters,” this woman said, explaining that she has written her daughters via U.S. mail weekly while they have been away at college. “That’s why I collect little sayings and words of wisdom and tuck them away. After I’m gone, they’ll find them, and think of me, and get a little more insight into who I was.”

If that’s the case, after I go, my kids will be finding messages from fortune cookies promising success just around the corner and rewards for keeping up the hard work until the day it’s their turn to go.

 But I guess I would be of the mind that if it’s something I don’t want known in life, I probably wouldn’t want it known after death. Sure, there are times now when I wish I’d been badder — not in a breaking the law or hurting anyone else kind of way, but in the sense of taking risks and making spontaneous choices as opposed to always the sensible and safe ones. But if I had, I wouldn’t write about it and leave it for my children to find.

Still, I got what she was saying. The closest thing I can relate it to are the recipes I have from certain people I loved — my grandmother, a close friend, a cherished aunt. In their handwriting, with their notes on yellowed cards and pieces of paper, they give me comfort every time I look at them.

 Death may be the end, but that doesn’t mean it’s over — at least, not for those left behind, who inevitably, it seems, are left wanting more.

Driving downtown on my way to the farmers market on a recent Saturday morning, I spotted someone I knew.

It was the photographer who took my kids’ senior pictures. He was walking with a woman and a pretty blond teenager. The mom was carrying hangers with several changes of clothing. They were, obviously, taking senior pictures. 

I drove by them again later, a few blocks over. The girl had changed her shirt, and was leaning against a tree as the photographer shot. “This is where it begins,” I think.

Just the week before, we had exited East Lansing with a load of furniture, not planning to go back this time. It was the last of many, many moves in the nine years that, between them, she and her brother spent at Michigan State University.

There were the initial moves into dorms with a cast of thousands, in excruciating heat, then moves out. For her brother, there was the move into the frat house, then out; into an apartment, then out; into a house, then out. For her, it was into a house, then an apartment, then another house. Now, out.

Whew. Meanwhile, the basement at home base Traverse City had become a mini-warehouse of sorts, full of secondhand furniture and boxes. What couldn’t be used from one move to the next came back here.

At one point the basement was overflowing with couches and chairs, two mini-fridges, beds and bed frames, coffee and end tables — so much that I, the packrat, even gave in and sold some just to clear space. That included the pool table – there just wasn’t room.

 Last week, as we took inventory of what my daughter needed to set up her new real-life-because-she’s-graduated-and-has-a-job apartment, I wished I hadn’t.

 Up the basement stairs and into the truck went the blue sofa we bought when she and her brother were still little. Out came a lamp and coffee table bought at a garage sale for one of her brother’s college houses.

We found several boxes of dishes and kitchen utensils still with store tags on them, and those came, too, along with her entire bedroom set. In East Lansing, we picked up the rest of her stuff.

It was bittersweet driving away for the last time, and off into her future. Back home that night, her room was empty, save for dust balls and the myriad pictures on the walls from her high school days. She’d taken a few with her, but it was time to pack the rest away.

Meanwhile, the basement, suddenly, seemed empty. And it all flashed before my eyes when I saw that mom and daughter with the photographer.

The clichés you hear all your life – how time flies, enjoy it while it lasts – are so true. Though I would suggest a new one: Don’t sell the pool table.

As the oldest of five, you learn to protect your stuff – at least, the stuff you really care about.

And it’s not that I’m selfish. About most things, I can share with the best of them.

But some things are mine and mine alone. One is my toothbrush.

So a few weeks ago, we’re in a hotel while attending a wedding. My daughter the bridesmaid realizes she has forgotten her toothbrush. She wants to know if she can “borrow” mine.

To me, the words “borrow” and “toothbrush” do not go together. Once you lend it, the loan is irrevocable.

I would give her the shirt off my back. But there is no way I’m letting her or anyone else use my toothbrush. The very concept disgusts me, and I tell her that.

“Why?” she asks. “You gave birth to me.”

“Yeah,” I retort, “but I didn’t lick you clean.”

Now, when in hotels, I keep my toothbrush tucked away anyway. I’ve been doing that since I heard a story a few years ago about some families who went to Mexico for spring break. As the story goes, when they got back home to the U.S., they got their film developed and found pictures on their cameras of the cleaning staff doing unmentionable things with their toothbrushes. It’s probably an urban legend, but no matter. It will never happen to me.

In lieu of letting her use my own toothbrush, I have one of those freebie toothbrushes hotel front desks give you when you forget yours. I’d only used it once, years ago, and offer it to her. It’s a little ratty, as happens to things in your cosmetic bag that you have not removed in years, but far preferable to the alternative, I think. She accepts it, grudgingly.

Fast forward two weeks. She comes to spend a few nights with me in Kalamazoo. I’m working during the day, but in the evening, we go to dinner and then watch videos.

On the second night, we’re just coming from dinner and are pulling into the video store parking lot when she blurts out, “Uh, I need to buy a toothbrush.”

“You forgot yours again?” I ask.

“Yes,” she responds.

“Can’t you use the one I gave you a couple of weeks ago?” I ask, referring to the hotel freebie.

“That was gross,” she says, “I threw it out.Then she blurts out, “By the way, I used yours this morning.”And we both burst into uncontrollable laughter. I can hardly breathe, I’m laughing so hard.

Our next stop is the drugstore, where we both get new toothbrushes. Mine is where she’ll never find it again. Ever.

Hers? Just wait until she gets her film developed.

The State Theatre is ours all year long.

The State Theatre has turned out to be the unexpected bonus of this annual event that started six years ago as a fledgling effort to bring some of the quality independent films we who live here rarely got to see, to our little corner of the world. The State glitters and is a centerpiece throughout Festival week, when people not from these parts join locals for what has become a happy rite of summer here.

What visitors may not realize, though, is that the State may shine even brighter the rest of the time, too.

First, the whole place is run almost entirely by volunteers, all of the time. They give it a warm, and often quirky, air you won’t find in chain theaters.

And then there are the free community events. When the occasion calls for it, the State knows when to open its doors. When a local football team makes it to the state finals, the party’s at the State. Those who can’t drive to be in Detroit or Pontiac or East Lansing or wherever the final game is have been able to watch it live, in the plush comfort of the State – at no charge. Ditto the Stanley Cup playoffs when the Red Wings are in contention.

I had the opportunity to attend one of these gatherings when the U.S. was playing in what turned out to be their last match in the World Cup. The place was packed with soccer fans and fanatics, local soccer teams, people carrying – and blowing – vuvuzelas and teens painted in the colors of the USA and waving the flag.

It was way better than watching the game in a bar. There was a feeling of community that made me proud. And that’s what the State has become – a gathering place for all.

Even if you can’t afford the price of a movie ticket there, which is reasonable, you can attend an event at the State. As far as seeing a film goes, the popcorn is great. I haven’t encountered a broken-down seat there yet. The bathrooms are pleasant. And your feet won’t stick to the floor. I’m just saying.

If you ever drive through other small towns in Michigan and elsewhere, you’ll inevitably see the remnants of similar historical downtown movie theaters — run down and a shadow of their former selves, or shuttered and in ruin. That didn’t happen here, because of Michael Moore and the Traverse City Film Festival.

And so it is during the festival, when we share the State with out-of-town guests and visitors, there is an unmistakable sense of pride. The State has become everything the film festival promised it would when they bargained to acquire and restore it when all of this got started.

And more.

 “La famiglia e finita.”

I understand enough to know what she’s said, but she translates, “The family is dead.” I’m talking with an older woman, a cousin of a cousin of a cousin who descended from the same town in Italy where my grandma was born. I’m calling her because I am interested in information on places to stay there.

A couple of years ago, I visited that town on a mountain in Italy with my daughter. We rented a car in Rome and made a day trip.

I had never been there before, and was enthralled with seeing the house where my grandmother grew up, the church where she married, the streets she walked as a girl. My daughter, however, was a little creeped out. It was the town that time forgot. Most of the young people are long gone, and many homes are empty, owned by relatives in the States, Canada or other parts of Italy who come for August vacations. But where she saw decaying brick and the occasional stray dog, I saw magic.

Ever since, I’ve had a singular goal of going back to stay overnight. I want to wake up where my grandmother woke up. Walk the streets she did. There’s no hotel there, so it’s a matter of finding a home or room to rent.

And that’s how I happen to be on the phone with this kind woman, who is lamenting how cousins used to be as close as siblings, and now they hardly know each other. How extended families used to live within blocks of each other, and gather for meals just because.

 I remember. Growing up, we regularly attended baptisms and weddings and dinners at the Italian-American club. I have wonderful memories of huge Italian meals, kids running around in Communion dresses, women dancing with women at the wedding, where old ladies packing their purses with sweets.

I got what she was saying, but didn’t comment that I couldn’t agree. Yes, things have changed. Women work. Kids grow up and move away, chasing jobs and dreams.

But my cousin in New York and I talk often. We see each other often. She’s one of the few people I can stay up until 4 in the morning talking over wine with – and remain awake.

I think of my son, in New York City for an internship, catching a bus to see his cousin, who’s in Boston. A few weeks earlier, he and his wife had come home to Traverse City, spending several days with us and another cousin, who now lives in Chicago, and reverting to the same closeness they developed sharing a playpen.

We have family gatherings at my parents’ frequently, glad for whoever can come. The ties that bind are still there.

The family isn’t “finita.” It’s just “diversa.”

Different.

The other thing experts will tell you is to research the company where you’ll be interviewing. For me, that means doing Internet searches, thoroughly exploring the company’s Web site, and calling anyone I know connected with the company to find out what they may be able to tell me.

Still, you can’t predict what the interview will entail. Which brings me to one of the best interview questions I’ve ever been asked — and the one that I think should be a guide to anyone preparing for a job interview. Right out of the gate, the hiring manager on my last job interview asked me, “So what have you done to prepare for this interview since we set it up a week ago?”

The answer to that will be revealing. If you stammer and can only say that you took your best suit to the cleaners and got your hair done, that won’t cut it. If you can’t say that you did your homework, and share some of what you learned, and how it shaped how you prepared and some of the questions you want to ask as a result, that would not be a good thing.

As it was, before this particular interview, there wasn’t a lot of information available about the function for which I was applying. There was company data online. I knew someone who worked for the company and called her to pick her brain. But beyond that, specific details about the department this job would be part of and the products it produces were limited. Truthfully, going in, I didn’t feel as adequately equipped with information as I would like.

I also realized I’d made a mistake when the interviewer asked me if I’d brought a resume. Because I’d submitted all of that prior, and in my haste to pack to go to this interview out of town, it didn’t occur to me to bring an extra copy, I had to lamely say no. She said it wasn’t a big deal, it was just that I needed to fill out an application and it would be easier if I had my resume at hand. And she had extra copies of my resume. Still, I felt it a careless oversight on my part and you can bet I’d never do that again.

Back to the question of how I’d prepared. I told her what I’d done to research the company, and what I learned, but that I’d hoped to find out more. We proceeded to have a very good interview in spite of my resume misstep. I’d come with a lot of questions, and in the end, I did get the job.

In the future when I’m interviewing people, though, I will probably ask that question out of the gate as well.  I think it’s one of the best questions to keep in mind for anyone with an interview coming up. Get ready as though you know you’re going to have to tell them how you did it, and you can’t help but be prepared.

     A friend makes that observation. Her husband can’t find work here and so is traveling to other states, going where the work is, for weeks at a time.

     Watching the generations before us get to middle age – kids grown, finally having freedom and money to travel, buying a cottage or RV in anticipation of retirement – set the tone for what many of us pictured for ourselves.

     But that is not the case in her household, as it is not for other Baby Boomers affected by downsizing, layoffs and/or an abysmal job market. The American dream of working until you are ready to retire, in jobs that have responsibilities and salaries commensurate with your experience, is not to be taken for granted. Not anymore. If you have it, it’s a gift. If you don’t, well, join what appears to be a growing club.

     I can think of one family with three brothers in their 50s; two have recently been laid off from lifelong careers. Another man I know who lost his job is now traveling out of state to work each week. His wife and kids remain behind. They can’t take a chance on her leaving her job here.

      I think of another woman, 51, who lost her job about five years ago. She returned to college to get a teaching degree, relying on fast food work and student loans to get through. Graduating two years ago, she couldn’t find a teaching or any other decent job, so kept working fast food while barely paying the bills. Finally, she was hired in Nevada, away from home and most of her family. At least now, though, she has a decent paycheck.

     For me, finding a job that would pay enough to keep the wolves at bay has meant leaving town as well. I love the new job, and am lucky to have it. But it can seem surreal, when I think about it, to come back from work each evening to a small apartment, several hours from family and friends.

     At the same time, I never intended to be coasting into retirement by now either. Having devoted a good two-plus decades to putting parenting over career, I’d always expected this stage of life would be my turn – my opportunity to see how far I might go without those constraints. It’s just that I’d always pictured far in terms of personal growth and upward mobility – not geography.

     All the way around, it’s probably a good thing that 50 is the new 40. A lot of us are going to need that 10 extra years, just to get things on track again.

She and her husband had been married two years by then and she showed me the system their parents had taught them: a ledger book and envelopes. In the book you write your list of monthly expenses, she said. You label the envelopes — electric, phone, rent, etc. Each time you get paid, you put money in the envelopes so that by the end of the month, you have enough for the bills. 

It sounds pretty quaint in today’s world of online bill paying and direct deposit. But it worked for a long time and came to mind in a nostalgic sort of way as I take stock and regroup and move forward with a new reality.

My new reality is the same one a lot of people are facing these days, given the economy and record unemployment. I came to mine by choice, though, having decided to leave my job and start a business that I ended up selling because all around, it wasn’t working for me.

The months since have been all about rebuilding and figuring out what the next step should be, couched in no small amount of self-doubt, confusion about the best choices to make going forward, and plain old worry. Then I saw some new words of wisdom on a business sign that I drive by regularly and that over the years, at times, seemed to speak directly to me. This latest message read, “It’s never too late to start over.”

Now, I should note here that if not for that sign and a few especially timely and meaningful fortune cookies, I may have never decided to take the plunge and start the business in the first place.

That said, I think there is a reason for (almost) everything and am certain this will all make sense in the bigger scheme of things one day.

But that new message stuck with me. The more I thought about it, I came to see a path where before even the normally glass-half-full person I am had seen more roadblocks.

I also felt a new calm and resolve. That’s exactly what you‘re doing, I thought. Starting over. It may not be what you plan or want at this stage in life, but how much of life is, at any time?

No, I haven’t returned to Rhonda’s budgeting system. But if that’s what it takes, I still have the old ledger somewhere, and envelopes are easy to come by.