Westclox Baby Ben Alarm Clock

New York, 1997

This was my Nana’s alarm clock.

Nana and I looked alike, laughed alike, even complained alike. She’d always been my favorite—and I hers. “You’re my first!” she’d shrug, lavishing attention on me in front of my siblings and cousins.

Nana was well into her 80s, and still sharp, when I last visited her apartment. I was in my 40s—and though I was a travel writer, I didn’t get to The Bronx very often.

Nana poured two cups of Sanka, and we moved into her living room. It had always looked the same: kitschy lamps, bowls of hard candies, and plush furniture “preserved” in old plastic slipcovers. I hated the slipcovers, but it had never occurred to me to take them off. That day, though—inspired by a recent visit to Tibet, and the Buddhist view of impermanence—I insisted.

At first Nana was terrified. But she quickly got into the act. Soon the yellowed vinyl was piled on the floor. She looked at her newly liberated furniture in disbelief. “Oh, my,” she said, and lay down on the plush sofa. “Oh, my.”

Nana was in her 90s when she moved into a nursing home. She was frail, and her memory was failing. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, and I’d grown a beard. “Who are you?” she asked. She touched my face. “Do I know you?”

“It’s Jeff, Nana! I’ve come from California to see you!” She looked puzzled, but continued to stroke my cheek. “I don’t know who you are,” she said at last. “But I know that I love you.”

A few weeks later, my mother called me. “Nana won’t let go,” she said. “It’s her time. But she’s afraid to die.” She put the phone to Nana’s ear. “It’s all right,” I said. I told her how much I loved her. And then, to be sure she remembered me, I reminded her about the slipcovers.

Nana died that night, on the full moon of May: a day celebrated around the world as the anniversary of Buddha’s birth. Some Buddhists believe that the merit of any action performed on this day is multiplied millions of times. If you step on a bug, it’s as if you’ve wiped out the entire population of Topeka. But each act of kindness is a gift beyond measure.

Sometimes, shedding our skin is the kindest thing we can do for ourselves.