Letting Go

I remember clearly the day I realized my mother’s memory was worse than I realized. We were charged with bringing a dish of green beans to a family gathering. I waited to follow her lead, since her kitchen in this independent living apartment was unfamiliar to me. But my mom, then in her 80s, gave me a helpless look and finally admitted that she didn’t know how to make them. This was the woman who had cooked for a family of nine, who made a different dish every night of what was then considered a healthy meal: meat, a starch (usually potatoes), vegetables, salad and dessert.

It was hard for my mother to admit she was no longer capable, because she had always been in control—first raising seven children, then tending to her mother’s needs in a nursing home, and then taking care of my father after he suffered a massive heart attack, lost his memory and then had a stroke.  Her identity and self-esteem were based on taking care of others. When that ended, and she couldn’t even take care of herself any longer, she was terrified: what was left of her?

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Going Backwards

Does it feel like our history is unspooling before our eyes? Like most in my generation, I grew up before a woman’s right to an abortion was ensured. Friends told me about getting back-street abortions, about the shame and fear they felt. I heard third-hand stories about women using clothes hangers to get rid of unwanted pregnancies. So when Roe V. Wade was decided in 1973, it seemed like the horror stories would end, that the world had finally come to its senses. Instead, the recent Supreme Court decision and the ensuing laws by some states to restrict women’s freedom to make their own decisions set women’s rights back to where we started.

The environmental news is equally depressing. In 1969, I remember the Cuyahoga River in Ohio catching on fire because it was so polluted. In those early days of the environmental movement, we were starting to hear stories about whales becoming extinct because of over-fishing. Eagles were dying because of the overuse of the pesticide DDT.  Those of us who identified ourselves with a new word, “environmentalist,” were overjoyed when President Richard Nixon, not a progressive in anyone’s book, started the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. We thought we were on an upward course to save the Earth, especially when the astronauts took a photo from the moon that showed a dazzling blue planet. After seeing this, how could anyone not want to protect what looked like paradise?

Yet, since then, we’ve suffered worsening environmental damage, especially from climate change, in many cases reversing any gains we made 40 or 50 years ago. Although there have been victories—the outlawing of DDT, certain species of whales returning and rivers less polluted—you only have to look at the dried-up lakes of the West during this unprecedented drought to get that sinking feeling that we are losing the race to save the planet.  

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No Funeral, No Obit

I was shocked when two friends told me that, after they die, they didn’t want a funeral or an obituary. I’ve since come to realize that this is part of a nationwide trend (see “Honoring the Wishes of Those Who Didn’t Want a Funeral,” in Next Avenue), although I’m still not clear why.

Growing up, funerals were a part of my family’s life. They weren’t just a ritual of mourning but a way of maintaining and even strengthening the fabric of our family and community. I still vividly remember my grandparents’ funerals. They were preceded by two nights of wakes, where friends and family members showed up at the church to view the body and to offer comfort to the family.

On the day of the funeral, we would drive past my grandparents’ home, as a final farewell to the place they spent most of their lives, before proceeding to the church, where hundreds of people—family members, coworkers, neighbors, friends, fellow church members—would be lined up in the pews. The priest, who knew my grandparents and family well, would give a long eulogy, after which we would proceed to the cemetery and the family plot, marked by a large granite stone.  

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