The 5 Good Boomer Reads for the week of February 7, 2019:
- Magnetic north just changed. Here’s what that means.
- What is an Elder Law Attorney and When do You Need One?
- The Biggest Wastes Of Time We Regret When We Get Older
- The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
- End-of-Life Conversations Can Bring You and Loved Ones Closer
Magnetic north just changed. Here’s what that means.
Yeah, we know everything changes. Change is how we get gray hair. Change is what happens while we watch our children grow up. Change is the difference between seasons.
Turns out change also happens to the North Pole. It moves.
If you’re a map-and-compass person, then this story won’t be a shocker, but the details are interesting. If you think climate change isn’t real, then finding out the North Pole not only moves all the time, but moves faster than we ever imagined is going to be Earthshaking. Literally.
What is an Elder Law Attorney and When do You Need One?
Sometimes there’s a need for legal support between planning the retirement plan and the reading of the will. Here’s some discussion on dealing with that.
Disclaimer: I know Meredith Williamson socially, but this is not an ad or a service placement, no money or other value has exchanged hands. In fact, I didn’t even know she was the interview subject until I started listening to the podcast.
The Biggest Wastes Of Time We Regret When We Get Older
We’ve all got a bucket list. I’ve done pretty good on ticking off the items during my adult life–even did pretty good as a youngster. Some turned out interesting and a few were a waste of time.
But there’s also practices. The way we do things can be a waste of time because we don’t understand the practice or the value of the outcome. Here’s a look at four practices that we can change from wasting our time and make into new time-saving resources.
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered
I’m a history buff. One of my bigger disappointments while traveling was finding out that the History Channel had very little history in the programming any more. It was a surprise only because our family cut the cable cord in 2002 and never looked back.
Recently I discovered The History Guy. A better-than-replacement for the History Channel. Every day there’s a 5-15 minute show on some little known historical fact, idea, person, you name it. And best of all, it’s available on your mobile phone, your digital tablet, or any other computing device including your Smart TV and those streaming devices, such as Roku, Apple TV, and Chromecast.
If you enjoy history, take a listen, you won’t regret it.
End-of-Life Conversations Can Bring You and Loved Ones Closer
We are at that age where we simultaneously are parents to our children; caretakers–and sometimes parents–to our parents; and dealing with the inexorable onslaught of our own aging no matter how graceful.
Having a grasp on what our parents or partners want as the years draw to a close is helpful and can relieve some stress over difficult decisions.
I know because I had to make a decision that went against keeping a promise in order to avoid adding grief to another person’s already heavy burden.
This story will take a minute. And it’s a little tough to write.
My dad drank. In fact, he drank quite a bit. Every day. Except those days at the beginning of each year when he would swear off carbohydrates for January. That included booze.
One boozy conversation with me was repeated almost every time I visited him after he retired with his wife to Las Vegas. He romanticized an end-if-life exit using one of his guns.
The conversation would always end the same way: he would make me promise to bring him one of his guns if he was incapacitated. That was the extent of our end-of-life conversations.
A few months before the end of his life he was quickly and heavily stricken with dementia. The doctors gave me the straight scoop after his wife ok’d the personal information exchange. There was no turning back, no getting better, and no timetable.
I was told that dementia sets its own schedule and the doctor gave me what his experience told him would be the devolving steps. Dad had already progressed to where he really didn’t remember anything from the day or even the months before. He was rarely lucid.
My last visit was about three weeks before he died. Dad was in another rehabilitation center, but he was waiting for transfer to a dementia care facility. As I entered the rehab center and gave them my dad’s name I could hear him loudly say he heard my voice and say “my son is here.”
Dad and I talked about all sorts of things that day and the next. A kind of aimless talk that was mostly anchored in the past.
A day later, still waiting for transport later that day, Dad suddenly griped my arm with intensity. I turned to look and his eyes were burning with that competitive intensity he had when he played football or squash. The kind of intensity where you knew that what came next would be tough. “Bring me my gun.”
That was it. As quickly as his grip crushed my arm, it softened and the intensity drained from his eyes. He drifted back to a half-sleep and talked some more about long ago happenings, mostly hiking trips we took with friends. This time the care facility he was moved to was on an upper floor with code-locked doors and elevators to keep patients from wandering out into the streets.
He never mentioned the gun again. He also didn’t know his wife asked me that visit to catalog and disperse his guns. The guns had already been sold or given away. The .22 single-shot rifle he had given me years before was already locked away in a brother-in-law’s gun safe. The 12-gauge was sold, as was the .38 hammerless Airweight, and the .22 Taurus short barrel. The .22 snub nose his uncle passed down to him was given to a collector friend.
As I left the facility and my dad for the last time, I thought about breaking that promise to him. As he could not leave the facility and he was surrounded by people, and he was rarely lucid, I felt his wishes were subservient to the safety of those around him. He could not safely act on his own.
So, take the time to have that end-of-life talk. It might be a number of talks over a longer period of time. But listen, listen carefully and acknowledge that person’s wishes.
Then do what you think is best for everyone.
-30-
Get More Boomermale
Subscribe to the audio podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Music, or any good podcast catcher. Or follow us on YouTube.
Stay up to date through our weekly email, just click the Free Book button in the right hand sidebar. And we’ll send you a FREE copy of 51 Life Lessons Every Boomer Male Should Have Learned By Now in PDF. Also available for Kindle on Amazon at $9.51, or printed and bound softcover on CreateSpace for $17.51.
Lastly, thanks for joining us today. Be Well, Do Well, Live Well.
