Tag Archives: Men

It’s Gonna Snow! Get the Bread and Milk!

15 Wednesday Jan 2014

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snow cravings bob

It’s all about the white.

BY BOB SMITH

What is it about snow that makes people crave bread, milk, and eggs? Whenever the forecast in the New York/New Jersey area calls for more than a dusting of snow, the supermarkets fill up with frenzied shoppers “stocking up” on bread, milk, and eggs. Is this really necessary?

Does everyone plan to sit out the snowstorm munching on egg sandwiches and glasses of milk? Or are they going to bake cookies with the milk and eggs? Then why the bread? And why no run on baking flour? Why isn’t everyone out there buying chicken, yams, and asparagus? At least you can make a decent complete meal out of those.

People also fill up their cars with gasoline before a storm – even though they’ll do little or no driving if there’s a significant snowfall. Does it make them feel more secure knowing that rounded lump buried in the driveway under three feet of snow has enough fuel to take the vehicle to Cleveland and back – if only you could drive it down the block?

In any event, when was the last time it snowed so much you were trapped in your house and couldn’t dig your way out to the store before your existing, everyday, supply of bread, milk and eggs ran out or went bad? Even the worst blizzard in New Jersey is cleared away, and the roads are passable within a day – or at most a day and a half – of the last flakes falling. Are people afraid the supply trucks can’t get to the supermarket after a big storm, and our local quota of bread, milk and eggs will dry up so we’d better stock up while we can? But when has that ever happened? Not in my lifetime.

I’ll tell you what has happened, though: my local supermarket runs out of bread, milk, and eggs just before a big snowstorm because of all the panic buying. Or at least they run out of my favorite brands – I’ve been reduced to buying skim instead of 1% or 2% milk, wheat instead of good old nonnutritious white bread, and those weird brown eco-eggs that cost twice as much as regular white ones.

That’s it! It’s a white fetish! In anticipation of the world being covered in snow, everyone wants to be sure they have an ample supply of white foods. And bread, milk, and eggs just naturally top that list. White rice, shredded coconut, and lemon sherbet can’t be far behind. Heck, if snow were brown there’d be a run on chocolate, Brazil nuts, and day-old ground beef.

There isn’t a big snow event in the New Jersey forecast for the next few days, so we can all rest easy. For now. But when it all comes down, don’t get caught without your stash – be ready to white-up and hunker down for the long haul. All two days of it.

Years Disappear When Family Shows Up

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Cousins Joe and

Cousins Joe and Kevin.

After more than half a century on the planet, the odds are that each of us has made some friends with whom we have lost touch for many years. The amazing thing is that when we finally get together, often it seems like no time has passed at all. I found out recently that the good-friend phenomenon extends to some family members as well.

Those who read this blog regularly may remember that in 2013, after 40 years, I met up with my cousin in Denmark who shares the same name . Well, it so happens that he has two brothers, Joe and Kevin, whom I also have not seen for long periods of time. I last saw my cousin Joe in 1987, and my cousin Kevin in 1977. There was no reason for the lack of personal contact – we were all just living our lives. Our common grandparents had died, and we just lost touch.

So when my cousin Joe’s wife Loretta contacted me via Facebook a few years back, it was a pleasant surprise. Joe had married Loretta after the last time I had seen him, so Loretta and I had never met. But she found me on Facebook, and we kept in touch that way.

Then, in December 2013, Loretta let me know she was planning a surprise 65th party for Joe. She didn’t expect me to come. She was just hoping I would write a message that she would place in a book of good wishes she was preparing to give Joe for his birthday. But I recognized that we are all at an age when we can’t be sure there will ever be another opportunity to get together. Illness or other impediments might make it impossible sometime soon. So after talking it over with my wife, we decided to fly for the weekend from New Jersey down to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Joe and Loretta make their home.

We were booked to fly down early on Saturday morning, and home on Sunday night.

That Thursday night, a snowstorm hit New Jersey. On Friday, we dug out from the six inches of snow and packed our bags. Saturday morning we awoke to a temperature of 8 degrees and headed to the airport with our fingers crossed that the flight would not be canceled. It turned out that not only did the flight leave on time, we arrived early. The 38 degree temperature we were greeted with in Charlotte seemed tropical by comparison.

That night we found our way to the site of the surprise party, and were greeted by Joe’s daughter, Leslie. My wife and I had met up with Leslie in 2012, but before that, we had not seen her since she was six. It’s interesting to see how kids turn out, and Leslie has turned out great. Of course, I missed all the drama years in between 6 and 32. I think that old adage about not wanting to see how the sausage is made applies to kids as well. It’s the end product that matters.

Two Pats

Pat met Pat.

Soon, other guests arrived, including my cousin Kevin. As soon as he walked into the room I knew him, even though I had not seen him in almost 37 years. We embraced, and began to catch up on each other’s lives. Kevin introduced his wife, Pat, and I introduced my wife, Pat. It was a “Pat Terranella meet Pat Terranella” moment that reminded me of my meeting with the other Frank Terranella in Denmark last year.

Kevin and I found that we both married our Pats in the same year – 1978. Then came the main event. My cousin Joe entered the room to a thunderous “Surprise!” and a round of “Happy Birthday.” I was standing towards the back of the room with my cousin Kevin. Joe immediately spotted me and called out my name. As with Kevin, we embraced and began the process of updating each other.

It was amazing how the years fell away. We were soon reminiscing about our youth spent at Lake Hopatcong, and remembering our common grandparents. By the end of the night, it was just as if Kevin, Joe and I had seen each other regularly for all those
decades.

I was happy we had made the effort to fly in for the party. It felt good to re-establish some old relationships. It felt that the karmic balance had been restored and I think our grandfather, the senior Frank Terranella, was smiling down on “his boys.”

But, of course, no good deed goes unpunished. Our flight back was delayed seven hours, and we got home at 3:30 Monday morning. Maybe our next reunion will be in New Jersey.

Bursting (Pants Included) Through the Holidays

10 Friday Jan 2014

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the holidays

BY BOB SMITH

Okay, it’s over. I’m 10 pounds overweight, feeling miserable, and resolving, like 29 million other Americans, to fight off the ravages of the recent holidays before (or rather, as) I bust out of my pants. I’ve got to at least put a dent in it before I have to put on a bathing suit again. And that could be as early as next month if I get my wish to go to Florida for the second half of this ugly New Jersey winter.

I admit it – I’m a victim of that giant end-of-year holiday “Hallothanksmaseveday,” which starts with the candy and costume ads on October 1, and runs right through to the blowing of the last noisemaker early on the morning of January 1. Four holidays are telescoped into a dizzying three-month orgy of candy, turkey, pumpkin pie, cookies, sugarplums (whatever they are), hams, yams, nog, logs (cheese and Yule), lights on trees, gifts galore, champagne, shrimp, long brunches, and tall Bloody Marys.

We’ve now entered a brief no-holiday season. Sure, there’s Martin Luther King Day and football playoffs and the Super Bowl in early February, but otherwise, the stretch between New Year’s and mid-February is relatively holiday-free. That brief respite looks like my best chance to get a serious start on losing the holiday fat before the parade of celebrations begins again.

Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter, Father’s Day, Memorial Day, and the start of summer, followed by the Fourth of July – that covers February to mid-year. August and September are relatively light, with only the traditional Labor Day lamentation of summer’s end to break up the monotony. But throw in the occasional birthday, anniversary party, or wedding, and the summer can be full of overindulgence opportunities, too.

Then it’s October 1, and the holiday marketing machine cranks up “Hallothanksmaseveday” all over again. What a life.

Happy New Year!

A Farewell to Uncle Jimmy

03 Friday Jan 2014

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bob jimmy

BY BOB SMITH

I always look forward to The New York Times year-end edition of its Sunday magazine, which is devoted to reviewing the sometimes fascinating lives of notable people who died during the year. But everyday people also died this year, and in their own ways, their lives are just as special.

Take Uncle Jimmy, my wife’s godfather. Jimmy was 98, or 99, depending on whom you ask, when he passed away in November. (He thought he was 99, aiming for triple digits in March 2014.) He was first cousin to Maria’s mother on the paternal side, and first cousin to Maria’s father through his mother. I think that’s right, but I’ve never fully mastered the intricacies of old world Italian village relationships. The name on his birth certificate was Vincent, but everyone called him Jimmy. No one knows exactly why.

He was compact, and mostly bald, with an impish grin and an infectious laugh. It seemed as if Jimmy was always happy. He raked the leaves, and weeded the beds around his house until his early 90s, when bouts of dizziness, and occasional neck pain prevented him from continuing. Jimmy liked to tell how his father had died, at the age of 89, after falling out of a tree. He had climbed up to prune it, probably over his wife’s objections. But it was, after all, his tree.

“Who else was gonna do it?” Jimmy observed with a shrug and a smile.

He loved the ocean, and fishing from the jetty for scrappy rockfish that we would cut in chunks, dredge in flour, and fry in olive oil to a cinnamon-brown crisp. When things went wrong, like the day I was fishing with him and my line unspooled and got hopelessly tangled, Jimmy had the perfect words for it:

“It’s all wickety wackety. You can’t fix that. Cut the line!”

After his wife died, he refused to go back to the shore house because it held too many memories. So for the last 10 years or so, we could only see him at the home he shared in Nutley with his daughter (now retired herself), and her husband. Every time we visited, Jimmy would sit us down at the kitchen table, pull out the bottle of Drambuie, and insist that I drink shots, even if it was 10 in the morning. He happily joined me for at least one or two, at least until last year when his hands shook so much he spilled most of the liqueur before it got to his mouth.

“Jesus Christ,” he laughed. “Wouldja lookit that. I’m shaky! I got the shakes! Hey, what’re you gonna do?”

He would shrug, and wobble the short shot to his lips anyway, taking a gingerly sip.

“Don’t get old,” he told me, waving his arthritis-twisted finger in mock solemnity. “Have another shot, go ahead!”

The night he died, he complained of head and chest congestion, but he refused to go to the hospital because he hated those places. He just took cold medicine and went to bed early. He awoke at 4 a.m., coughing. He took another dose of cough syrup, and fell back asleep. Between then and 9 a.m., when his daughter went to check on him because he’d missed his usual coffee time, Jimmy had stopped breathing.

The wake was a small, and surprisingly genial affair. After all, he’d lived a long, happy life without major illnesses, and died peacefully, at home, in his sleep.

“I’ll sign a contract for that right now,” was a much-heard mantra during his wake and funeral.

It’s wickety wackety without you, Jimmy. You were well-loved.

I’m pouring the Drambuie now.

Longer Life Means Lifetime Savings in the (Memory) Bank

30 Monday Dec 2013

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memory bowl 2

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

I think that the best thing about being on the right side of 50 is the riches we have accumulated in the memory banks.  People who are in their 20s have so few good memories compared to us. Oh sure, they have some childhood memories, and maybe even a few teenage memories of the golden variety. But we over-50s have those, and much, much more.

We can look back at the lives we have lived, and the choices we have made. Of course there are always some regrets, but as Sinatra sang “too few to mention.” The golden memories we have include not just our weddings, but the births of our children, their first steps, their first day of school, their proms and (for some of us) their weddings. Some of us even have memories of first grandchildren.

But most of all, we over-50s have golden memories of time enjoyed with significant others in our lives. Maybe it was a spouse, maybe it was a good friend, but the memory banks are chockablock with warm recollections of days gone by. Vacations spent in beautiful places are in there, alongside quiet Sundays at home in bed. We have the blessings of having lived and loved; laughed and cried. And we can summon it up anytime we want to. All it takes is for someone to say, “Do you remember when…”

There are lots of good memories associated with this time of year. Some of them, for me, involve enjoying great works of art. Can you remember the first time you heard Handel’s “Messiah”? How about the first time you watched Linus tell us the meaning of Christmas in  “A Charlie Brown Christmas”? I put these in the same paragraph because they both inspire me.

There are tons of Christmas movies around, but some of my favorites are not about Christmas, but just take place at Christmas.  An example is “Home Alone.”  An older example is “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

One of my favorite movies that take place around Christmas, but is not about Christmas is “A Family Man.”  It was made in 2000, and stars Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni. Writers David Diamond and David Weissman create a sort of It-Could-Have-Been-a Wonderful-Life story.  Instead of getting to see what the world would have been like without him, Cage, a rich, single businessman gets a “glimpse” of what his life could have been like if he had married his girlfriend, Téa Leoni, instead of flying off to London for an internship.

It’s a beautiful and profound romantic comedy set in the holiday season.  It shows the power of choices we make in our lives. It shows how memories are like dominos that can branch off in unexpected directions as life moves us inexorably forward. I recommend watching “A Family Man,” when you’re in a contemplative mood so you can get the full effect. It’s perfect end-of-year viewing.

As another year comes to an end, and something called 2014 begins, those of us who have spent most of our lives in another century can still look forward to making even more golden memories in this one. And those 20-somethings will never catch up to us. When it comes to memories, it’s really an embarrassment of riches for the over 50s.

My Favorite Toy Almost Shot My Eye Out

26 Thursday Dec 2013

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Bob toy

BY BOB SMITH

My favorite toy growing up was an air rifle. That’s probably not politically correct today, when the issue of guns, pro or con, is hotly debated, but it’s true. When I was nine, and my brother Jim was 10, we started asking my parents to buy us BB guns. Like the kid in “A Christmas Story,” the universal response was that we’d “shoot an eye out,” or worse. We promised to be extra careful, arguing that we could have fun, and perform a public service at the same time by picking off squirrels in the back yard. No dice. Air rifles were as far as they would go. Because air rifles didn’t shoot real ammunition, my parents assumed they were safe.

So when my brother and I tore into the long, gun-shaped gifts on Christmas morning, we knew they weren’t “real” weapons. But to us they were still beautiful. Each featured a brown plastic stock with simulated wood grain, and a matching forestock under the barrel. The barrel itself was metal, about a half-inch in diameter, with a sighting nib sticking up at the end. You “loaded” the gun with a charge of air by pumping the long oval lever under the trigger. It opened and closed with a satisfying snick, and you could feel the tension in the trigger as the air was chambered.

The rifle exploded with a violent, satisfying POCK! sound when you pulled the trigger. You could even feel a mild recoil in the stock against your cheek and shoulder. Click, click – POCK! Click, click – POCK! Jim and I ran around the living room in our pajamas “shooting” each other, our sisters, the Christmas tree, the cat. It was glorious.

“Okay, enough already!” Dad bellowed from the dining room table where he sat musing over a giant mug of coffee, the floor around his feet littered with tattered wrapping paper and toys. He was badly hung over, which was something of a Christmas tradition for him. Mom seized the opportunity to shut us down – from that moment, we were forbidden to ever shoot air rifles in the house.

Fast forward to spring: the first warmish day with the sun shining and tender blooms starting to peek out on the trees. Jim and I put on our jackets, slung the air rifles over our shoulders, and headed out to do some play-hunting. We snuck up on some sparrows in a bush, and POCK! sent them flying. We stalked the wily squirrel, but couldn’t get close enough for a decent shot.

But then the game changed. I’m not sure, but I think Jim was the first to lean on his gun with the barrel pointed toward the ground. The dirt was soft and moist from the recent snow melt, and a plug of mud snugly filled the opening. Because he had already cocked the lever, it was already loaded with a charge of air, so when he pointed it at me, I instinctively raised my arm in defense. He fired, and the dirt plug exploded out with a menacing CHUNK! sound, spraying a hard splat of mud across my shirt and upraised arm. It hit with surprising force, particularly at close range. And the mud was pebbly – homemade buckshot.

Like splitting the atom changed modern warfare, our air rifle play-fights instantly went from tame to terrifying. We didn’t have BBs, and the dirt bullets wouldn’t kill any squirrels, but we’d still figured out a way to take an eye out with that thing.

Unlike Me, Christmas in Manhattan Never Gets Old

23 Monday Dec 2013

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radio city

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Around this time of year, New York gets dressed up for the holidays. The shop windows proclaim the symbols of the season. Otherwise dull office buildings are decorated with wreaths and holly. Tourists flock to Rockefeller Center, and the many other public displays of Christmas. In fact, people come from all over the world to spend Christmastime in New York.

xmas windows

I think the first time I ever was brought into Manhattan was for the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show. It was probably the late 1950s. I remember standing on a long line in freezing temperatures. But it was worth it. Once we got inside, I was in awe of the jaw-dropping majesty of the hall. And then a man appeared in the corner of the stage and began playing a marvelous organ that had bass notes that rumbled in my stomach.

After a while, the curtain opened and there were the Rockettes dressed as toy soldiers. And wasn’t it just so cool the way they fell down!  Needless to say I practiced that move with my cousins at my grandparent’s house on Christmas Eve that year. It was a lot of fun, but we found out just how hard it was to fall slowly like the Rockettes did.

After the Rockettes, there were some Ed Sullivan-type acts like jugglers, ventriloquists and singers. Little did I know that I was seeing the death throes of vaudeville right before my eyes.

Next there was a big Christmas-themed musical production number that usually featured snow men, reindeer and of course, Santa Claus.

And then there was the grand finale – the living Nativity. Camels! Real, live camels walked across the stage led by Wise Men along with shepherds. And at center stage was a manger with Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. After seeing this, I remember thinking that what our school Christmas pageant needed was camels!

As if all of that was not enough, soon after the stage show ended, the lights went down again and we saw a movie. All this for $1.50. No wonder there were lines around the block.

xmas tree

But wait, there was more. We always ended our trips to Radio City with a visit to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. We watched the skaters glide across the ice as Christmas carols blared from speakers.  And then finally, we walked to get some food. Where? Why the automat of course!

Horn & Hardart’s coin-operate diners were a fascinating place for a kid to eat. Just putting in the nickels was fun.  I don’t remember the food being particularly tasty, but I remember having a piece of blueberry pie that was my first ever. I would never have ordered it, but I remember the little door holding the pie was at my eye level. It must have been pretty good because blueberry pie is a favorite of mine still.

The automats are long gone, but the Rockefeller Center skating rink and tree are still with us. And fortunately, Radio City Music Hall is as well.  Of course the movie is gone, and the prices are competitive with Broadway, but they still have a stage show with camels!

Today I work in Manhattan, so I am there practically every day. It would be easy to be cynical about all the commercialism, and take all this Christmas finery for granted. But I find that even after more than 50 years, when I hear the jingle of silver bells on a street corner this time of year, I’m still the wide-eyed child marveling at the wonder that is Manhattan at Christmas.

My Pregame Show: Remote Controlling

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

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control Bob
BY BOB SMITH

This past Sunday was snowy and cold, so I decided to space-out watching football all afternoon. First, I gathered the choice parts of the Sunday New York Times – the Book Review, Arts section, the magazine, Automobiles, and Week in Review. Solid, semi-serious reading. Next, the New York Post for comic relief – stories full of blood, sex, political graft, and combinations of the above. Rounding out the reading pile was the Asbury Park Press – good for the Jumble, and to see if any local politicians have gotten themselves mired in New York Post-worthy peccadilloes.

Most important, I assembled the electronic devices I’d need to ensure full control over my environment. First, the entertainment controls: the Samsung TV controller, the Denon controller for the receiver that distributes sound to speakers around the room, and of course, the silver Cablevision device. To watch a cable show, you first power-up the TV, receiver, and cable box by pushing the appropriate “on” button located near the top of each controller. Then you use the Cablevision controller to change channels, and the Denon device to change the sound volume. – unless you’re watching a show through Netflix or some other Internet-based service like HBO GO.

Because my system is wired wrong, and I don’t have the electrical engineering degree needed to sort it out, my amazing Denon surround sound speakers don’t transmit Internet audio. But you still must have the Denon receiver powered up to continue receiving a TV video signal. So for Internet-based programs, you turn Cablevision power off so no cable-based sound comes through the Denon speakers, and instead use the Samsung controller to adjust the sound that’s now coming only through the tinny speakers on the TV. Simple, right?

Then there’s the gas fireplace. This controller is straightforward, with two settings that work like the Human Torch character: flame on/flame off. It also has a thermostat to select an approximate room temperature the unit will maintain by activating an electric blower. I’ve never figured out how to adjust this temperature setting downward, so the fireplace constantly tries to keep our family room at a toasty 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Once it gets cranked up, you could melt marshmallows within eight feet of the hearth. On football Sundays, we call this the “red zone.”

To counter the red-zone effect, we have the white Casablanca controller, which turns the ceiling fans on or off, and adjusts their speed. You can also use this to reverse the blades’ direction, so if you’re feeling chilly, you have the fans rotate downward to recirculate fireplace heat within the room. And if you want to see if the dog, or anyone else hiding upstairs, may be susceptible to carbon monoxide poisoning, you rotate the fans so they pull the heat upward.

Entertainment: check.
Environment: check.
Next, communications: in case someone calls during the game, and I actually want to talk to them, I also include the cordless house phone in my couchside array. Because our telephone service is provided by the cable company, the caller’s name and phone number is displayed on my TV screen, so I can readily ignore any unwelcome calls, such as telemarketers. That includes the cable company itself, which at least once a month tasks some unfortunate drone with calling to ask if I want to upgrade my service. I could lease a high-end Ferrari if I canceled my current subscription, and used that money more wisely, so I always decline. (Of course, I have a little fun first: “Are you watching the game right now?” “No.” “Me neither, thanks to you.” HANG UP.)

Finally, I have my smartphone on the table. It’s not shown in the accompanying photo because I was using it to take that picture – which is one of its most useful features. If in the middle of the game you feel an urge to take a snapshot of your feet in dingy gray/ once-white gym socks, there it is. Bang. Instant gratification. Then you can message it to anyone you like. Bang. Instant gross-out.

It’s also good for taking calls from people you ignored when their name and number flashed on the TV screen. After all, if someone really needs to talk to me, they’ll follow up with a call to my cellphone. I simply explain that I missed their call to the house because I was out buying batteries for my controllers.

So there I was ready to control my world: video source, volume, channel, picture-in-picture, flames on or off, ceiling fans up or down, phone calls taken or ignored, toes waiting to be sent into the ether for snarky commentary, all the news that’s fit to print, and all the news fit to wrap fish. I had it all.

I fell asleep ten minutes into the game. But I had powerful dreams.

Winter: Nothing to Sing About

16 Monday Dec 2013

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snow Chelsea Piers December 30, 2012-6

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

Maybe it’s the blood thinners, and maybe it’s just age, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to deal with New York winters. Don’t get me wrong, I have never been a lover of winter. But I used to tolerate it better. In recent years, I am finding that all I need is one week of sub-freezing temperatures, and I’m done. I’m ready for spring.

I know several people who absolutely adore cold weather. They cheer for snowstorms. But as a person who has never ice skated or skied in his life, I see nothing to cheer. Where my winter-loving friends see a winter wonderland, I see frostbite, and a broken leg waiting to happen.

A man by the name of Carl Sigman, who I can only conclude was deranged, wrote a popular song in 1949 called “It’s a Marshmallow World.” You probably have heard it, particularly at this time of year. It begins:

“It’s a marshmallow world in the winter,
When the snow comes to cover the ground,
It’s the time for play, it’s a whipped cream day,
I wait for it all year round.”

Is this the height of perversion or what? This guy looks at snow, and sees marshmallows and whipped cream. Was he just hungry when he wrote this?

He goes on:

“The world is your snowball, see how it grows,
That’s how it goes, whenever it snows,
The world is your snowball just for a song,
Get out and roll it along.”

Get out and roll it along???

The only conclusion I can reach is that there is some sort of Stockholm Syndrome at work here. This fellow must have been living in Buffalo, and after years of being held captive by Jack Frost, he simply snapped, and embraced his captivity. Otherwise, why would anyone in their right mind write this:

“It’s a yum-yummy world made for sweethearts,
Take a walk with your favorite girl,
It’s a sugar date, what if spring is late,
In winter, it’s a marshmallow world.”

As I said earlier, I know people who love winter. But I also know people who have heart disease. Both are sick. Years ago, I remember hearing Garrison Keillor talk about winters in Minnesota. He said that winter was “the time of year when Mother Nature makes a serious effort to kill you.”

I think that’s the wisdom of the Prairie talking. People who grew up with cold respect it; they don’t necessarily love it. My daughter-in-law grew up in Northern Vermont, so she knows from cold. Yet when we went out to Minneapolis last year for a family wedding, she complained constantly about the cold there. (Apparently it’s a dry cold in Minnesota that’s worse than the wet cold of Vermont.)

Anyway, it’s just December, and I’m already ready for pitchers and catchers to report for spring training. And I just got word that I have to take a business trip. Could it be that a client in Aruba needs me to visit? Copenhagen??? You’re killing me!

The Solemn Side of 50: Aging Parents

11 Wednesday Dec 2013

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summer contemplation

We can help our parents depart gracefully.

BY FRANK TERRANELLA

One thing that all we over-50s have in common is that if we have living parents, they’re nearing the end of their lives. It’s difficult to face that reality until we are forced to by catastrophic events. I had one of those catastrophic events recently when I was told that my mother had a tumor on her pancreas. My mother is 85, and so illnesses like this are deadly serious. As it turned out, her surgeon was able to remove the cancerous tumor, and we are hopeful she will have a few more years with us. As a two-time cancer survivor, I know that cancer is an intractable foe, and the rest of her life will be a battle against it.

a mother and her baby

Natural order.

Dealing with my mother’s serious illness has made me realize that the decline and fall of parents is part of the fabric of life after 50. It’s an ordeal not just for the parent but for the over-50 child as well. Parents are our bulwark against death. As long as we have a parent alive, the grim reaper will take the parent before the child. It’s the natural order of things. But once we don’t have the parent ahead of us, we’re next. And that’s kinda scary.

It seems to me that American society in general, and our healthcare system in particular, do not handle well the illnesses of people at the end of their lives. Instead of concentrating on the quality of life, and the patient’s wishes, we do everything we can to increase the quantity of life. To add a few months to life, we take extraordinary steps like respirators. Rather than give up fighting for life, we bring out radiation therapy and chemotherapy, knowing full well the misery they will cause.

But who determines when a parent will be forced to fight for life or be allowed to peacefully expire? When the issue came up during the Obamacare debate, people like Sarah Palin criticized the “death panels” that would decide who lived and who died. We find it impossible to let go of people who sometimes are begging us to let them go.

Issues like living wills, hospice care and assisted suicide become all too real once you have an aged, sick parent. It’s the side of life after 50 you won’t hear talked about on other blogs. But this blog is dedicated to presenting the “warts-and-all” picture of life after 50, from the white of a daughter’s bridal gown to the black of a father’s funeral drape. After all, we all are in the same boat. It may help to talk about it.

And it doesn’t have to be grim. The end of life can be a celebration of what that person has meant to us; a celebration of the difference that person’s life has made. It can be a time to finally say “I love you,” and to show it by our actions. It’s up to us over-50s to show our children, through our example, how we want to be treated at the end of our lives. In effect, while our parents are teaching us how to gracefully exit this life, the best thing we can show our children is how to be good children.