Monthly Archives: September 2026

Export to PDF | Export to DOC

This is such a strange time. I don’t know if there is anyone in my generation who would believe the current state of affairs if they were told 50 years ago this is what it would be like. I was against Nixon, Regan, Bush 1,and Bush 2, but they were all good men (apart from Nixon). I even liked Mitt Romney and had a great deal of respect and affection for John McCain. They were all responsible adult professional politicians. I thought they all had the priority of serving the American people.
I don’t see that today. Every day is a crisis. Every day brings more difficulty.
I think back to the 60s. We were anti-war and a little selfish in that we wanted to have fun. As we got older we shifted into our traditional roles of husband, wife, mother, father, worker.
We saw our parents age and die, but that was never going to happen to us- but it has. Every day either myself or one of my friends faces a different challenge because of situation /physical health/mental health. It remains fairly easy to focus on the negatives, but there really are a lot of positives to still being alive. I can see my children and their families with my beloved grandchildren. I can think back on all of the really wonderful experiences I had with my beautiful wife. I can be grateful for how successful my children are. — –and yet—
I hear on a daily basis how most of the values that I have are being mocked and denigrated by the politics of today. There was a mid-term Republican “convention” a few weeks ago. At one point the president asked the crowd to take an oath of allegiance and even cheat to try and win. He even promised a $5000.00 check to every one if the Republicans kept control of Congress. It sounded so foolish, but most of the people there believed him. I keep wondering how anyone can believe a thing he says, but his faithful continue to bow down to him.
The “Charlie Kirk” thing is also hard to accept.. They have almost canonized a very controversial figure. He was brought up again at their “convention”. He was a difficult man to understand and I still don’t understand his identity as a devout Christian with everything he said.
I know it’s easy to be critical at this point in my life. I am retired, don’t actively support any political party, and am just trying to keep breathing. I have difficulty dealing with the loss of loved ones and now keep worrying about what the future will hold for my grandchildren. I know my parents worried about us. They lived thru the Depression, WWII, Korea, Segregation, etc. They are not called the “Greatest Generation” w/o reason. We challenged a lot of their beliefs and now are having a lot of our own beliefs challenged. I’m sure every generation has felt the same and thought the world was going to hell. Perhaps this is the real crisis for every age.
My grandparents emigrated from Ireland in 1902. They left at a time of crisis and persecution from Great Britain. My grandfather worked in the foundries and steel mills on the south side until he couldn’t. They were able to buy a home. My grand mother took in boarders and rented the top floor apartment of their home. They made it thru wars and the Depression. They raised their family and were grateful for what they had.
After the war the great migration from the south continued. African Americans wanted to improve their life as we all do. They wanted to move out of the ghettos that they had been forced into. There were so called “blockbusters” who would try and move into more established “white” neighborhoods.
According to family stories my grandfather was coming home from his tavern when he saw a large crowd in front of a home near his. He went over and found a black family trying to move in. The crowd was very angry. He saw the police trying to subdue and arrest a young man he knew. He went over to try and stop them and was arrested himself. He was brought down to the police station and put in jail. He was there for at least one to two days. He never got over that. He may have had a heart attack there. After he was released he went home. He died at home a few months later. Due to this my family had tremendous prejudice against black people and blamed them for my grandfather’s death. I remember hearing the “N” word regularly growing up. As I got older and began to overcome this, there was a lot of family resistance. Now our families have many black friends and my youngest son had one of his black friends as Best Man at his wedding. Change happens to every generation for better or worse. I know this, but the current change is very hard to accept because there really is no respect for what we did and had to overcome to make things better.

Export to PDF | Export to DOC

An acquaintance of mine died suddenly. He was barely an acquaintance but was the husband of a close friend of my sister. I had met him few times. What I had in common with him was that we had both lost our wives. My wife died in March. His wife died in April. I heard thru my sister that he was having a very difficult time and I certainly identified with that. He was dead for three days and was starting to decompose. Another reminder of the end was that I just saw a death notice for a priest that taught me. I remember him as a charismatic young priest. He had been chosen as a rising star by the diocese and was sent to Rome to complete his seminary and be ordained. His classes were good and thought provoking. The picture in the death notice was surprising in that he didn’t have a color on, but instead a regular business suit. I think he stayed a priest until the end. The one thing that finally hit me was that he was six years older than I am. He died at 87 and was certainly not a young man any more. I couldn’t believe he was that old. I still think of him as a young man, but sometimes I think of myself that way too. The reality is that I am not.
At this time death doesn’t frighten me. However that’s easy to say when I am feeling healthy. I just turned 81. When I was in my 20s that was an ancient age. It still is. My Dad died at 48. His dad died in his early 50s. My Mom’s dad died suddenly at 72. I found out recently that it was one of my cousins that found him. I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want my sons or my grandchildren to discover me.
However that wont be my choice. No one knows when the end will happen. My son once went to a conference in New York for an actuary exam. One of the things he told me was that the presenter said that for every alpha beginning there is a zeta ending and that is the ultimate reality. I think my father’s death was the first time I realized this and then the deaths of my mother, sister and brother-in-law happened. They were all difficult. However the loss of my wife was overwhelming. The pain is still very intense—much more so than the others. The grief counselor said that we all have a fantasy of dying in bed together and when that doesn’t happen the one left alone has to face a difficult reality alone. The nice fantasy of dying in bed together is just that — a fantasy. Death comes when it wants to, not when we decide.
There is a radio insurance commercial that is playing a lot now. It is for life insurance and tries to induce a sense of guilt if you don’t follow thru. I have that taken care of. One line that did come thru is “that everybody dies”. I think we all know that, but our sense of denial remains very strong and intact until the end. Hospice was a way to confront that.
The thing about Hospice is that it is a comfortable place to die. It is centered around death and dying. You go there and don’t really expect to leave. Marilyn was basically comatose from the evening we brought her in until she died eleven days later. I had just gone home to shave/shower and as soon as I walked in the door the phone rang to tell me she had died. I called my sons and we went to the hospice and found her in bed with a beautiful blanket. They had placed a doily that my granddaughter had made and a flower in her hand. I kissed her and began to cry as my sons did.
I always told Marilyn that she was the center of my life. At work I would hear terrible stories and see people at real crisis points in their lives. I would comfort them and offer encouragement as they were going thru this. I would praise them for the progress they were making however slight. I would then go home to Marilyn. She would always be there for me and would always make me smile. I can’t imagine what that would have been like if this had happened when the boys were young. Single parenting and trying to work sounds overwhelming. I think she could have done it. I don’t know if I could .The longer this goes on the more I realize how strong she was and how lucky I was to have her.