I also find myself becoming more nurturing of older people, people around my age, as I myself age.

At my age, most people no longer have living parents. For those that do, the pleasure of having the company of a living parent is bittersweet, almost always mixed with great loss and huge responsibilities.

I have not had living parents for over 30 years.  During this time, I have had to parent myself.  Now I find myself parenting others, not just my only child, but family, friends, clients, acquaintances.  Many of these people are my age.

When I talk with someone who has done something good, I find myself saying to that person, “You did a really good job.  I’m very proud of you!”

This is something our parents said to us (or should have said to us) as we were growing up.  This is one of the best things a parent can do – let us know when we do well and acknowledge our efforts.

When I see a client who has, against great odds, reclaimed a career, made an important and difficult decision, or helped another person by acting in the other’s interest rather than in their own self-interest, I find myself saying to them, “I’m really proud of you!” Many of these people are in their 50s and 60s (or even older) and have no one to say this to them anymore.  But they deserve to have it said and to have it said sincerely.

When a friend or relative works on a problem for months or years and solves it, I find myself saying to that person, “I’m really proud of you!”   They did well, and unless they have a spouse who will say it, many of them don’t have parents any more or anyone who will say those words to them.

I found myself saying these words this week to my friend, who spent two years of hard effort arranging a complicated personal transaction that will benefit many others in the future.  I said to him, several times during the update on his project, “I’m really proud of you.”  He knew I meant it, he knew he deserved it, and it made him feel really good.

So if you find those words coming out of your mouth, don’t be afraid or embarrassed to say them.  Saying, “I’m really proud of you,” can be the appropriate and fitting thing to say to a person at times. 

 © Laurie Israel 2012

Our burials are very antiseptic arrangements.  The bodies are whisked away to a morgue and then sent to the funeral home.  Depending on our religions, we may (or may not) view the bodies of our loved ones.  We are taken away from physical association from the departed almost from the moment of death. This distances the grievers from their loved ones. 

Though separating the dead from the living is now tradition, it was no always so.  People used to have home funerals. Preparing the dead for burial and funeral rites were generally done by the friends and family members of the deceased.  This “old-fashioned” manner of dealing with the dead offers much.  It is essentially a return to a more traditional, personal approach to honoring the dead and going through the grieving process.  It may seem scary to us, but that is because we are so used to the other way, where the body disappears, and professionals handle everything.

If you want to find out more about this end-of-life option, a good place to start is by seeing the movie, A Family Undertaking  (PBS 2009), a film by Elizabeth Westrate, available on Netflix.   The movie follows several families and friendship networks in the United States during the illness of a loved one, through preparations prior to death, sitting with the bodies, the funerals, and the burials.  It is an eye-opening and touching experience. 

Another good source of information on home funerals is the classic Caring for the Dead:  Your Final Act of Love, by Lisa Carlson (1998).  It is still in print, and provides a wealth of information on home funerals, with articles written by various commentators on aspects of home funerals and caring for the dead.

In some states, home funerals are not permitted.  In Massachusetts, they are, but you have to follow the rules.   State health and sanitation laws and regulations must be scrupulously followed in the preparation and handling of the body, home funeral, and burial or cremation.   There are a number of individuals working in Massachusetts with people who want to have home funerals for their loved ones.  You can find Massachusetts information, find them, and get guidance by clicking on this link. 

http://homefuneraldirectory.com/archives/category/directory-listings/home-funeral-guides-and-consultants/ma

 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has posted many useful resources addressing handling of bodies, burials, and cremations by family members for people planning home funerals.  http://www.lawlib.state.ma.us/subject/about/burial.html

 If you would like to pursue this matter further, it will take time to address all the legal and practical issues.  Therefore preplanning is important.  You can’t wait until your loved one (or you) dies.  So if having a home funeral interests you, start now to prepare.

© Laurie Israel 2011.  All rights reserved.

A husband and wife, let’s call them John and Joan, have 2 children.  They have had middle-income earnings and saved for their retirement.   They now live in the (big) house where they raised their children.  Their income comes from social security, and IRA, and a small amount of income from a securities account.  They are 85 and 86 years old.  

During the past few years, they have started to progressively decline mentally and physically.  This is no surprise, since they are both older than average life expectancy.  (Most people over 85 have some sort of dementia).  John and Joan meant to have estate-planning documents (wills, health care proxies, powers of attorneys, etc.) but they never got around to it. 

John and Joan cannot take care of themselves in the house.  They are barely able to pay their bills (although they have enough money to do so, and are confused about what they have and what they can afford.  They have trouble climbing the stairs.  They are both still driving (small distances, slowly), but clearly are a threat to themselves and others on the road.  (Their refusal to stop driving is a symptom of their dementia.) 

John and Joan are only able to stay in their house because of the assistance of their daughter and her husband, who are driving 480 miles every week, and taking turns staying with the parents.  They are leaving their children (young adults who live with them) at home with only one parent at a time.  The daughter and her husband are at the end of their rope.  

John and Joan want to stay in their home on some days, and on others, they want to move to an assisted living facility.  When a lawyer came with power of attorney and health care proxy papers, they decided they did not want to name anyone.   With proper organization, they could hire home health care workers during the day, and continue to stay in their home for a while.   The help they need to stay in their home wouldn’t cost very much. 

The parents are getting very close to the point where, if they do not voluntarily accept help from their children, things will spiral down, and the parents will be in danger.   Then the children will need to ask for an involuntary guardianship/conservatorship.  The children do not want to do this, because they love their parents, and know their parents will hate them for it.  It’s not a good way to end a family history. 

So, if you are in your sixties, seventies, eighties (or older), do your planning now.  See the lawyer of your choice.  Try to plan for a smooth transition between you and the ones you trust.  Make it easy for your loved ones.  Otherwise, you will sadly be leaving them as a burden, which I’m sure you don’t want to do.

 © Laurie Israel.  2011.

First there was Christine O’Donnell’s “I am not a witch” ad,  causing everyone who was sentient in November, 1973, to remember Richard Nixon’s speech “I am not a crook” speech, in defending himself against the Watergate scandal. The quote in Hamlet adage comes to mind: [he/she] doth protest too much. 

In Christine O’Donnell’s ad, aside from denying that she is a witch, she says she is not perfect. (just like us).  There is one line in her ad that drives me crazy, because of its grammatical flaw:

“I’m nothing you’ve heard.”  

Did she mean “I’m not what you’ve heard I am.”  or “I’m nothing like what you’ve heard”.  But to say “I’m nothing you’ve heard”  – what does that mean?  I’m convinced that the grammatical error is intentional, and meant to drive well-educated progressive urbanites crazy.    

The “I’m you” line that appears at the beginning and at the end of this 30 second ad is especially creepy.  I understand what her ad man Fred Davis, expert creator of conservative TV ads meant – she is trying to get the votes of  people who do not like what their representatives are doing in Washington.  But did she mean it in some other metaphysical or religious sense that she is like me, or other viewers?  Maybe, yes.  In a sense, we are all the same and all sentient beings, so I would agree with her.  Nonetheless, I still do not want want her to “go to Washington and do what [I would] do”, because no matter how metaphysically alike we are, I strongly suspect she would not vote as I would vote if we were both U.S. senators. 

The other really creepy thing about the “I’m not a witch” ad is her polished delivery.  She is a very fine actress, all the nuances are there, and she is great in front of a camera – very present.  She is a much better actress then Sarah Palin. Her delivery is so superb that it is scary.

Her “I am a not a witch” ad engendered many wonderful parodies on YouTube.  My favorite by a brilliant (but totally unknown) political comedian, whose real name I do not know.  His YouTube moniker is ConalCochran (no word space).  He says, among other things, 
“I’m you.  America’s a 300 pound diabetic man.”   I think he records his videos in the basement of his parents’ house.  Here’s the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8ABXZcfZCQ&feature=related

Another really creepy ad that came out this month was Carly Fiorina’s “Hot Air” ad against California incumbent senator Barbara Boxer  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJKlc77K5dg  The Barbara Boxer ad is extremely slick, involves a very scary Barbara Boxer dirigible, and presents as a disaster film.  It has some subtle content – Boxer is always shown in profile.  Does she really have a large (Jewish) nose? Not in the photos I saw when searching Google photos.   There is a subtext here, definitely.  It reminds me of some of the crowd scenes in Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ  with crowds of large-nosed, ugly Jews urge Jesus’ punishment.  Are we becoming a fascist state like Nazi Germany?  There has been some commentary about this among commentators.  Here is a link to one.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment

Another video ad I ran across this month is a new political ad, titled “Chinese Professor”, paid for by “Citizens Against Government Waste”, a right-wing group funded anonymously as a result of John’s Robert’s Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision.  It is racist, xenophic and fear-mongering. It’s a apocalyptical fantasy that takes place in Beijing in 2030.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTSQozWP-rM&feature=player_embedded

The music is scary and creepy.  It is a very slick ad.   Because it’s all in Chinese (with English subtitles), it has lent itself to some wonderful parodies, consisting of the same ad, but an alternative voice-over.  Here’s one:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3am6hnuFXnw

Then, after I was recuperating from these ads, Ginni Thomas telephoned Anita Hill,who is now a mild-mannered professor at Brandeis University.  This is what Ginni Thomas said:

“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas.  “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day.”

What especially got me is the “have a good day” at the end.  It’s like John Wilkes Booth saying “Have a nice day” to Mary Todd Lincoln, after he shot the president, and before leaping off the balcony.  It is so shockingly absurd to wish someone a good day, when you have just accused them of what?  What did she mean that Anita Hill should give her a “full” explanation of “why you did what you did with my husband”.  It would have made more sense if she had said “why you did what you did to my husband”.  I wonder if Ginni Thomas’ comments were written, or spontaneous, and what strong feeling smoldering inside her caused her to make the phone call. 

Some people (not me) theorized that the phone call was a product of  “drunk dialing”.  This is the first time I saw this term. But there is a Wikipedia entry on it:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunk_dialing, and a website devoted to it. www.drunkdial.org

Drunk dialing is a pop-culture term denoting a phone call made by a person when drunk, especially a phone call that person  would not have made if sober.  (We have all been there, so it was good to find a cultural term for it.)   There is also a related new term, drunk texting.

Ginni Thomas’s phone call (now a famous part of the American political history canon) dredged up the Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991, and reminded everyone of the pubic-hair-on-the-coke-can  testimony which we had all hoped was behind us.  At the time, the coke can testimony flew around the world in pre-internet times with the speed of the internet.  American and Americans got a black eye pretty quickly.    

In case you have forgotten (or was not born then, or too young to remember), here is Anita Hill’s testimony on the coke can issue:

“He [our present Supreme Court justice]  spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes….On several occasions, Thomas told me [Anita Hill] graphically of his own sexual prowess….Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?”

A few days later, Ginni Thomas, when asked by the media why she had put that message on Anita Hill’s voicemail, said her offer to “get past what happened so long ago” still stands and that “Certainly no offense was ever intended.”

This month, also, our very fine, dignified, thoughtful President contributed a video for the “It Gets Better” project, started by Dan Savage.  The project asks for people to post videos on YouTube to help combat LGBT suicides and encourage gay and lesbian youth to be strong against school bullying and harassment.  Recently, there have been several much-publicized hate crimes against gays, and some very devastating teenage gay suicides. 

The President’s video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geyAFbSDPVk   shows how emotionally intelligent he is, and how much he is a supporter of gay and lesbian people.

Here is an excerpt of some of what President Obama said, and my comments: 

“Like all of you, I was shocked and saddened by the deaths of several young people who were bullied and taunted for being gay, and who ultimately took their own lives.  As a parent of two daughters, it breaks my heart.  It’s something that just shouldn’t happen in this country.”

Note how the president has a heart to break.  I believe him when he says the deaths are personally hurting him.  He is truly empathetic.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be picked on for being gay.  But I do know what it’s like to grow up feeling that sometimes you don’t belong.  It’s tough.  And for a lot of kids, the sense of being alone or apart – I know can just wear on you.  And when you’re teased or bullied, it can seem like somehow you brought it on yourself – for being different, or for not fitting in with everybody else.”

He did grow up very different – he had a very unusual background, with many strikes against him.  He must have felt this keenly.  This is how empathy is created – by one’s own difficult experiences.

“But what I want to say is this.  You are not alone.  You didn’t do anything wrong.  You didn’t do anything to deserve being bullied.”

He is clearly and emphatically saying here that it is not bad or wrong to be gay or lesbian.

 “The other thing you need to know is, things will get better.  And more than that, with time you’re going to see that your differences are a source of pride and a source of strength.”

I think what the President is saying here is that adversity makes a person stronger.

“It means you’ll be more likely to understand personally and deeply why it’s so important that as adults we set an example in our own lives and that we treat everybody with respect. That we are able to see the world through other people’s eyes and stand in their shoes – that we never lose sight of what binds us together.” 

He is subtly saying that everyone should treat gay and lesbian people – with respect.  

“As a nation we’re founded on the belief that all of us are equal and each of us deserves the freedom to pursue our own version of happiness

He says gay people have the right to pursue our happiness, including being married.

Thank you, President Obama for your support for young gay and lesbian people and for your courage in supporting the rights of GLBT people.

© 2010.  Laurie Israel.  All rights reserved.