How Baba Palazhka Kept Order Even from the Other World

I was once on my way to Lviv for cinnamon and cloves. The driver I got was a talkative one, and he told me about a village where they were burying Baba Palazhka. The woman was such a housekeeper that she wouldn't even let her own funeral run itself. While still alive she wrote out an order, wrapped it in a rushnyk and laid it in her chest. When I'm gone, she said, read it and do as it's written, because I'll keep things in order even from over there.

The priest unrolled the paper by the stove and began reading far too solemnly. Someone whispers from the corner that this is no tsar's decree, it's Palazhka scolding, so read it plainer. And in the order everything was laid out. The priest was to keep it short. Maryna was not to sing, because her voice scrapes like a door. Fedia was not to be put near the candle, because he waves his sleeve about. And no loud wailing, because she couldn't stand wet noise.

People were so afraid of breaking the old woman's order that they cried in whispers, but so diligently they went pink with the effort. Maryna kept humming on the sly all the same, and Fedia, no matter how far they moved him, very nearly put the candle out with his sleeve. The priest tried to keep it short, but out of nerves it came out even longer. And at the very end of the order it said: don't let Manka the goat into the yard, because that beast will find something to chew.

Fat chance. While everyone was watching Fedia and Maryna, Manka calmly walked into the entry hall and began chewing the edge of the memorial rushnyk. The deacon froze, the priest fell silent, and the neighbor woman sobbed now without a sound at all, purely from laughter. So it turned out that Baba Palazhka managed to organize everyone even from the other world.

The driver laughed then, but I was thinking my own thoughts. That's how we live. Someone passes on, and their love and their stubbornness still stand by the stove long after, straightening a neighbor's collar. And that, I suppose, is the best way to stay with your loved ones. Simply leave them a list of everything they do wrong without you.