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Autumn and Fall are such nice words to describe the most beautiful season in Illinois. I love this time of year as most of us do , but it also is a time of dying . Leaves turn a wonderful color and then fall off. The harvest is plentiful, but the corn stalks turn brown and brittle. My son’s dog died on Friday after a devastating illness. It was very sad to see such an active dog waste away. I also recently attended a funeral for my brother-in-laws sister. She was in her 80s and her health had gone steadily downhill over the last few years. The funeral service was a Catholic mass. The ritual was comforting, but the reality of death is ever present.

We are all going to die. You are going to die. I am going to die. What does that mean ? I still struggle with this as most of us do. I know this is the last third of my life and I keep focusing on the positives I have experienced, but the great unknown is still ahead. I wonder how I will be remembered?

In my culture there is always a wake. People come and say the usual comforting words to families and view the body. Some of our family wakes got quite loud and rambunctious. I remember one of our cousins from Ireland passed out in front of my father’s casket. At an uncle’s funeral, the procession to the cemetery got so out of control that people had to drive 70-80 miles an hour just to keep up with the hearse. After the burial there is always the luncheon. Sometimes this can go on for hours with much drinking, talking and remembering. The next day the reality of the loss begins to emerge. The loved one is no longer there and the family has to work thru this.

Customs are different depending on where you live. About 125 years ago in the Midwest, widows had to wear black for an entire year and really couldn’t go out unaccompanied. My grandmother wore black almost daily after my grandfather’s death until the day she died. Visits to cemeteries are quite frequent and emotional the first year. My mother would go almost weekly to visit my father’s grave. After she died we would go out occasionally to clean the headstones but now I cant remember the last time I visited the cemetery my parents are buried in.

How we remember and honor the dead is something that is not talked of much. We are more into the present than the past.. Halloween was originally called All Hallows Eve and the next day, All Saints Day, was the bigger feast. Now we celebrate Halloween where children and adults dress up in costumes, give candy to children, go to parties and even decorate our homes in neo frightful ways. Retailers report that this is one of the biggest holidays in their calendar year. One of my son’s neighbors seems to celebrate Halloween all year long. His garage is filled with monsters and skeletons. He frightens many of the children on the block and no one seems to know much about him. My son said he had some work done there over the summer and he wondered if even the contractors he hired were a little anxious about being around him. Halloween seems to be one of the only times we really think of death, but in a “fun” kind of way.

The Mexican tradition is certainly different. They celebrate the Day of the Dead on November 1^st.   This is a feast which involves actually going out to the cemetery and celebrating the lives of your ancestors. Some families decorate their family graves and even have family dinners around the tombstones.

Cemeteries here are very different. Most of the ones I know are very sad places. I haven’t seen a lot of happy times at the graveyard. There may be some effort to change this now. There was a recent story that one of the cemeteries in Washington DC has become a gathering place for young people. They try to schedule parties and even have film nights. I don’t know if I would be up for “Night of the Living Dead” at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery. I guess you really have to be in the mood.

Most of us forget our dead. Maybe we are remembered for one generation, rarely for two. I keep thinking of a cemetery in Alabama . A few years ago we visited an elderly cousin of my wife in Auburn Alabama. He began to talk of family history and told us that he knew where some of the distant relatives were buried. We agreed to go with him to visit this place. I remember walking thru overgrown forest and weeds until we came here:

It was an old family graveyard that no one had taken care of in years. Stones were cracked and many were almost unreadable.

I’m sure every one buried there had loved ones who missed them and cried over their deaths, but they were soon forgotten.

Maybe that is the way it is supposed to be, but I think the tradition of the Day of the Dead is a more positive way of celebrating and remembering. I have been saying for years now that I want to go out to the graves of my parents and grandparents. I think this year I will. Maybe I hope that my sons and their children will someday come out to mine. I don’t want any tears though. I really like the idea of a party and children playing around my grave as they hear family stories about some of the crazy things I did. The thought of adults and children laughing and celebrating will make me smile no matter where I am.

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One of the benefits of being retired is time. Sometimes there appears to be an endless amount and, even in retirement, sometimes there is not enough. On one of those endless days I began to think about the past and the many unresolved issues and relationships that occur over a lifetime.

Something I have avoided for many years was my time in the catholic seminary. I went to a seminary high school and college. I left shortly before ordination to the priesthood. I had spent six months living in a parish and functioning as a deacon. I had trained for this most of my life and really thought this is what I wanted to do. The reality of the loneliness of such a life never really hit me until I was there. I was laicized, went home, and started a new life. I avoided dealing with this until I was in grad school and one of the projects we had was an autobiography organized around one of the theories we were studying. I used group theory and began to look at the loyalty that developed with my seminarian classmates over time. We spent so much time together that we became like family. Leaving the seminary was not just leaving the goal of the priesthood; it really was like abandoning a group that had become like brothers.

I stayed in touch for a while, but then began a new life with new friends. I began to date. I think I was 25 when I started. I still feel sorry for the first girl I went out with since I had no real idea on how to behave. As time went on I became more comfortable, met my wife, went to grad school and started my life. Looking back I know I should thank the seminary and my friends for the values I developed and my eventual choice of occupation. However I really didn’t want to think about that too much. I had walled off that part of my life.

As I approached my birthday I began to think about this more and more. I decided to visit the seminary in Mundelein. I hadn’t been there in over forty years. My wife wanted to go, but I told her that this time I wanted to go alone. I know it had changed because of the drop in vocations. When I was there, there were two huge residence halls filled with students. We were divided into two groups–the final two years of college (—called first philosophy and second philosophy); and three years of theology. There was a separate building for the final year before ordination, which I never went back to.

Walking around the campus brought back many memories. I started there in September of 1965. I had to stop when I realized that it was fifty years ago. When I first went there, it was extremely strict. We were isolated from the world and from our families. We were not allowed any newspapers, magazines, Television, or radio. After a few months the rules changed and we were finally allowed these things and allowed to have family contact. I remember some of the strange teachers we had. Thankfully when I went there classes were in English. Three years before I started the classes were in Latin. Most of the teachers were elderly Jesuits who had been there for years. There was a story that one of the old Jesuits was teaching a class on sexuality. He wanted his students to know what a condom was. He would pass out three or four condoms in class so the students would know what they looked like. The story goes that he did this in one class and suddenly got five back. It was like the story of the loaves and fishes, but he really didn’t know how to respond. As time went on the faculty changed and became younger and more progressive. Seeing the old buildings and classrooms helped me remember many of the funny stories. It also helped to put things in perspective. I think that for many years I didn’t want to deal with this because I initially felt that I had let my brothers down. As time went on I knew I had made the right choice and my life with my wife and family was where I was meant to be.

I also began to think of a guy who was my best friend. He was really like a brother to me. Most of the group we were close to left the seminary, but he stayed and was ordained. After I left we maintained contact for a while. He even married us, but then we lost contact. I have often wondered about him and what his life has been like. He is still a priest, but I never really went looking for him. After my visit I contacted the head of the archdiocese and located him. I wrote him a letter. I don’t know if he will respond or not. The letter was mostly for me as a way to get some closure. I still smile when I think of some of our adventures back then.

I went to the seminary bookstore and bought a shirt and a hat. I have hats from all the schools my sons attended, but nothing of my own. I don’t know if I will ever wear them , but I now have something from my own past.

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In the late 60s and thru the mid 1970s we were all still in our hippie modes. Long hair, music, parties, long discussions about the state of the world were important. We would bake bread, practice meditation, focus on our mantras, and eat lots of yogurt. I remember long discussions about movies (2001??), music (Sergeant Pepper?), politics (Viet Nam?) What was the meaning of life? Were we willing to settle for the bourgeois values of our parents? What were we to become? This was before the reality of life had struck. Stress was having to wait in a gas line or having to deal with someone in their 30s or 40s who obviously didn’t understand. Now looking back, it seems somewhat ridiculous to consider this real stress. However at the time that was what we thought.

The very word stress is hard to explain. I don’t think we realize how stressful even small events can be. Even joyful occasions can create difficulty. There used to be a written stress test we would give people. It would list many negative things such as job loss, money, and health problems. It would also list positives like holidays, vacations, and job promotions. Each event would have a weighted score next to it. If your total score was above a certain number you were at risk for heart attack, stroke or health problems. The idea was that any real change was a stress.

There has been some interesting recent research on addiction. One of the research articles we used to quote to our patients was about how powerful cocaine was. The cocaine rat experiment involved a rat who, once he was introduced to coke, ignored everything else and did it until he died. A new experiment involved introducing a rat to cocaine and then putting him with a lot of other rats in challenging and interesting environments. The rat stopped using the cocaine and began interacting with the others and stopped the cocaine. This isn’t the total answer, but it does show how changes in environment and relationship can help or hinder.

Maybe all stress is related to relationships. Spouses, significant others, children, parents, employers, employees, customers, friends, pets-almost anyone or anything can become an issue in our lives. I still remember Martin Buber and his schema of relationships that go all the way from I-It, to I-Thou. Since we are all constantly changing, our relationships change too. How often do married couples ignore what their spouses are saying—even when they are talking directly to each other? How often do children become a burden or parents become a burden to their children? Life never stops and always has its challenges.

Once the hospital had a thriving biofeedback business. I still remember the nurse who ran the program hooking up these very harried executives to various machines trying to teach them to relax. As time went on and more research was done we found out people could achieve the same result by engaging in an activity they enjoyed for an hour or more per week. I remember one guy who was very stressed. He had a management position with a company that was going under. I saw him once and he was almost vibrating. I told him about the usual practices at that time of exercise, controlled breathing, meditation, etc. He came in two weeks later and looked like a different man. I assumed he had been practicing the homework I had suggested. He said no he really hadn’t. What he had done was get into his hobby of Taxidermy. He had worked on two fish and a deer for one of his friends. He said “I just lost myself in it and before I knew it two hours was gone”. Another patient would go to an archery range and told me that he always felt better afterwards. The ability to step back from a stressful period and refresh is what is important. So how do you do it? It depends.

Should you take up bow hunting and then stuff what you shoot? Probably not, but it did work for the guys I mentioned. While we all have the ability to relieve stress, it still remains hard to identify what is stressful in our lives and to find the one thing that may help you let it go. Perhaps the most important thing is to accept the need for it.

So how stressful is retirement? It depends. Relationships continue and even small things can become a concern. What does this ache, pain, symptom mean? Why can’t I do this anymore like I used to? Maybe I should go back to baking bread or taking deep breaths—or maybe I just need to focus on how grateful I am for the life I have had ?? Perhaps the real secret is to continue to try.

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Dealing with memory issues is such a strange part of growing older. The smallest thing can trigger a memory of an event that happened 20 years ago. Other things just seem to fade away. Lately there has been a TV commercial about early signs of Alzheimer’s. It shows a woman who can’t find her keys and her husband tries to help her find them. The commercial ends with warnings that this could be an early sign of the disorder. So imagine how I felt this week when I lost a set of keys. I had just walked into the house with them and they “disappeared ”. I looked everywhere for them. I do mean everywhere—including the freezer, the bathrooms, under the furniture and the garbage. I was beginning to have paranoid fantasies of someone breaking into the home and stealing them. After two days I gave up and had another set of keys made.

This morning I found the keys. They were bunched up in the workout shorts I had been wearing. I had taken the shorts off and forgotten the keys were in them. They were not evident at first because of the material of the shorts. The more I think about this, the less concerned I get. I have always had things “disappear”. I once lost another set of keys for over a year and a half. I think this happened in my mid 40s. I have no idea what will disappear next. I just have to accept that this has always been an issue. My wife is trying to come up with some increased structure so it doesn’t happen as much, but I’m sure I will find a way to overcome any effort she makes.

Names, titles, events just seem to slip in and out. I can be talking and all of a sudden not remember the title of a book or an author’s name. It will come back to me later almost like the keys that magically reappeared. Last week I was with a friend and we both began to laugh about how frustrated he became one time with how slow a driver I am. He was sitting next to me and put his foot on the accelerator. I just had to steer and swear loudly. The more we talked the more it seemed that this had just happened. I think that’s the thing about getting older. I have this gigantic hard drive inside my head that is packed with material and images of the past. Lately I have been going thru old pictures for a project for my son’s wedding. I look at pictures of him as a child and have trouble accepting that he is a man in his 30s. I also look at pictures of my wife and I back then. We were so young. Our children were so young. It just doesn’t seem that long ago.

Every age has its challenges and it’s benefits. One of the benefits of getting older is all of the memories—especially the happy ones. I suppose I could focus on the sad ones too, because they are also a part of who I am. I once heard Carl Whitaker, one of the icons of family therapy, talk about this. He was then in his mid 70s. He told us that if he tried hard enough he could bring back all the memories, the sounds, the smells, the places, the words and the people that were present when his father had died more than sixty years ago. He used this to tell us that this meant relationships never die. People in our lives live on in one way or another. One of my colleagues used to ask how often you hear your parent’s words coming out of your mouth. This surprised me because of how true it was.

What are the important memories – the ones you really don’t want to lose? That is a really difficult question. I suppose we could all say weddings, births, graduations, vacations, etc. However the mind stores everything. Sometimes the memories we don’t want can come flooding back. I had a number of patients with PTSD from Vietnam. They were symptom free for years, until random sights, smells, people would start something. One man was walking in the city and he suddenly found himself next to a family group from someplace in Asia. He heard them talking in their language and immediately had a severe panic attack. Another man was locked in his basement for two days because of fireworks on the 4rth of July. They wanted to never think of their time in VietNam again.

I think the challenge to accept everything and work thru it is what makes us who we are. I keep thinking of how diamonds are made. Before they become diamonds they are lumps of coal and have to be subjected to immense pressures for thousands of years.

Sometimes I still feel like a lump of coal, but sometimes I do feel like I’m beginning to shine. I think it depends on just continuing to accept every part of where I’ve been, whom I’ve known, and what I’ve done. I know that there are people, places, and things that will continue to disappear. I just have to not get upset and be ready when they come back.

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Lately I have been thinking about death, The recent deaths of a relative and the son of a co-worker who was only in his early thirties have probably brought this on. The death of any young person is very hard to understand. There is so much left unsaid and undone .My cousin’s husband died last fall. He was eighty and had lived a very full life. His funeral was full of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. The difference in wakes was more than age. There was a different mood. The only thing they had in common was death.

My grandfather died in October 1950 when I was five years old. There was a three-day Irish wake at a funeral home. My cousin and I were brought in for two of the nights. My cousin has memories of us wandering thru the funeral home. I just remember it being very warm. After the funeral my grandmother went into a perpetual state of mourning. She always wanted my mother or one of her other children to take her to the cemetery. She lived with us off and on until her death eleven years later. She often wore black or dark clothes when she went out and would pray at least two rosaries a day for my grandfather until she herself died.

Another clear memory I have is when I was in grade school and the father of a classmate died. We all went to the funeral mass. The wife of the man who had died began screaming and threw herself on the casket. I remember that this frightened me because I had never seen this type of emotional response. When I think of it now I realize that the man who died was probably a young man who left this poor woman alone with a very young family. No wonder she was so upset.

Death is going to happen. Nobody knows when and most of us dont want to think about it.. Whenever I had a suicidal patient I would work hard to have them think of the others in their life. I would try and get some type of contract with them so they wouldn’t do it. . This is standard practice, but if someone is really serious, it is very hard to stop. There was a young man in the hospital that hung himself with his own pajamas. My wife told me a story about a patient at Rush who killed himself with his hospital bed, , Then there are the sudden unexpected deaths from accidents/heart attacks/aneurisms, and whatever. These are usually very hard on the family because there is no real closure. It is most hard when there are many ambivalent feelings about the person who died.

There was a woman who was in a terrible marriage with long history of verbal and physical abuse towards her and possible sexual abuse towards her daughter. She had finally decided after almost fifty years of marriage to divorce. On the day she was going to tell her husband, he died while driving in a car with her and two of their friends. The friends and the woman suffered minor injuries, but the husband had a major heart attack and died on the scene. This woman who had bemoaned her fate for years was now not sure how to behave. The marriage was over, just not the way she wanted.

Another man told his wife in my office- “One of us is going to die and then the survivor will finally have a chance to be happy”. He ended up drinking himself to death, but she had developed Parkinson’s and is now in a nursing home. I doubt if she is happy.

Later this summer I will be 70 years old. I can’t even begin to accept that. My denial system is extremely strong and every time I am confronted with the reality of my age , I turn the music up louder. I like it when people say, “I can’t believe it—you don’t look that old!” However the reality is I am. I wonder what my wake will be like. I told my wife jokingly many years ago that I wanted a Rolling Stones song played as they were carrying me out. Now I am not so sure. Perhaps some bagpipers? I can picture people coming up to my casket and saying “Doesn’t he look good?? They did a great job on him!!” The thing about any wake or funeral is that it is a reminder of mortality—and that is still something I am working on.

We recently spent a week in Door County Wisconsin. I am an early riser and would usually go for a morning swim. One morning after the swim, I went for a walk with a cup of coffee and came upon two deer. They were only a few feet from me. They looked at me and then continued to graze until they slowly walked away. It was a moment of wonder. These moments are few and far between, but they still exist and continue to make me glad to be alive. Maybe I need to focus more on the wonder of now and not so much on the end. There is still a lot to see.