And As For My Glass Eye Collection

“...But she always liked that necklace, and so I’m happy to leave it to her.

While her neck may not be anything worth drawing attention to, I would argue that anything covering the neck has been sorely needed for quite some time.

Well, now that my daughter’s inheritance is accounted for, let’s move onto the one asset I know everyone in my family is clamoring for--

My glass eye collection.

It’s value, when last I checked, was somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. Who knows? It could be millions now. Billions, perhaps.

I tried not to think too much about money when I was alive, because as my father always used to say, ‘Money belongs in the safe we keep in the guest house, not in our minds and hearts.’ Father was a man of great wisdom, and he knew a good investment when he saw it.

That’s how he wound up with a wooden leg collection. One of the finest outside of a pirate museum you were likely to see anywhere.

When he died, my seven siblings and myself were all hoping we would be the recipient of all those wooden legs. We hoped to sell the collection to the School for Rare and Discomforting Things so that we could have our own fortune to start our lives with and buy houses with and so my sister Henrietta could purchase a parrot since none of us felt like talking to her.

Though we had grown up wealthy, our father had always shielded us from the trappings of privilege by refusing to buy us toys or nice clothing or allowing us to sleep in any of the wonderful bedrooms we had at home. Instead we lived in little tents that were scattered all across the north lawn, and every night, he and mother would yell bedtime stories down to us from their private balcony.

But enough happy memories, we’re here to talk about glass eyes and who they’ll belong to now that I’m gone.

When I found out that my father had instructed us to burn his wooden leg collection that night before retiring to our tents, I was furious. His most valuable possession was that assortment of artificial limbs, and he wanted us to destroy them.

Why?

Because he wanted us to make our own fortune in the world. Assemble our own noteworthy valuables. Acquire our own puzzlements.

That’s how I began collecting glass eyes. Some of the most realistic looking eyes in this hemisphere. Why, sometimes I open the chest where they’re kept at night, and for a moment, it’s as though dozens of tiny faces are staring back at me in the dark. It gives me the most delicious little fright, and when you’re a hundred and six, you take whatever thrills you can get.

I wish I could offer you the same excitement, my wonderful sons and daughters--all twenty-three of you. I wish I could bequeath each of my eighty-six grandchildren one pair of eyes apiece. The hazel eyes for the well-behaved children, the blue eyes for the mischievous children, and the brown eyes for the children whose names I can’t remember, because their personalities are so unremarkable to me.

Unfortunately, I can do no such thing, because I am also decreeing that I would like my collection burned--the same way my father’s was all those years ago.

The fortune you all may have been expecting is not forthcoming, and you’ll be all the better for it, I assure you. This will inspire you all to go out and capture your own little knick knacks that will rack up value only to sit gathering dust on your mantles or in your drawers or in the back of your closets where nobody can see them. For in this family, we don’t gather together priceless antiquities to one day sell them, but to think about how we could sell them if we wanted to, but never will, because we’re not savages. It’s not all about nickels and dimes. It’s about legs and eyes and maybe one day--mummified kidneys. That’s the dream I have for all of you. A life filled with ambition and a hope chest full of wigs made out of real human hair.

It may take awhile before you find yourselves as well-off as I am now, not because of my collection, but because one year as a birthday present to myself, I bought stock in a company that ended up being run by war criminals, and the next thing I knew, I was financially flush for life. Isn’t it funny how comfort comes to those who don’t ask pesky moral questions like ‘I wonder if the people I’m giving money to were part of that coup that overthrew Nicaragua?’

You may wonder if I regret not using more of my money to do good with, or simply to buy more useful items for myself, like a sofa or pillows for my bed.

The truth is, I like living with less. Our family comes from a long line of minimalists, many of them monks, who would sneak away from their monasteries to make trouble with the local village girls and chase ducks on the banks of the river. Of course, now you know why I was never much for genealogy. We aren't exactly the descendants of philosophers and kings. Still, I take pride in knowing we've come a long way, even if more than one of my brothers couldn't resist breaking into a run at the mere sight of a mallard. I suppose some things stay in the blood no matter how many generations transpire. That being said, I believe you all are a large improvement over those who came before you, if only because your chins aren't nearly as pointy and most of you are able to grow fingernails. I consider that a success.

As much as I’ll miss my darling tribe, my somewhat-too-large family, I have faith that you’ll create the most sensational lives for yourselves, and that you won’t be one bit angry that you can’t use a cluster of glass eyeballs to do it. I apologize for how long it’s going to take to burn them. The wooden legs went up rather rapidly, but I suppose glass won’t be as swift.

Nevertheless, I ask that you stand firm and wait until the fire has transformed my most prized possession into nothing more than ash and smoke.

At that moment, you may not feel much gratitude to me, but that’s all right.

Gratitude, like all good things, comes to those who wait.

And regardless of the fact that I am currently deceased, I can assure you--

I will be waiting.”