How are you doing, Cap? Do you have the ISIS or the Ebola?

hear hear … it’s a basic human right.
I figure my genetics will go the way of my mom and her sisters. They all got dementia … BAM … at age 83 …. and each lived approx 3 years after.

You’re assuming that you’re compos mentis. I hope you are, and that the rest of the states align their laws with Oregon. I’m giving my kids the power to pull the plug. One lives in Oregon.

i’m moving to Oregon at 80 and take care of business myself. And making sure all wishes are written down and documented. People have the right to their “end”

My mother, who was 3 years older than my father, died 6+ years before he did. He remarried a year later, at 85, to my stepmother, and lived to 90. His older brother, 95, lasted a few weeks longer. I grew up with my stepmother’s kids in the same church, so I knew them pretty well when we were younger.

My dad was pretty sharp to the end. He had a massive stroke, was unconscious for several weeks, and thank goodness came to long enough to tell my oldest sister to let him go. Otherwise, she would have done everything to keep him going. My poor mother was kept alive for, I estimate a good 5 months longer because that sister wouldn’t allow her living will wishes to be carried out to be allowed to die. Finally, she said that mom “told” her it was OK. As I put it to my other sister, she took mom’s farting as a sign of communication.

So you’re the “baby” too. Must be strange to have your dad gone so long. Is your mother still alive? I’ve got an 86 and 84 yr old divorced set of folks with dementia. Long term memory hangs around … Mom remembers the slights from Dad. No way she’d live in a home that he was living in. So we’ve had to find 2 different homes for them. Every day I just repeat the Buddha’s words on his deathbed. His secretary, who wrote down all his sayings, had been with in 30+ years, asked him “what are we going to do when you are gone?” His last words:
Strive on, with diligence.
Words to live by.
Be well MK!

Exactly! My fundamentalist family knows I’m an
atheist, and they pray for me. But I’m not ostracized, we get
together. They hug and love me and they don’t try to “convert”
me. And I love them. They would never “disconnect” from
me. And yes now and then I get a “Creationist” tract asking me
if I’ve looked at the other side. And I respond with Carl Sagan’s Pale
Blue Dot essay.

BTW, my dad died 18 years ago. My other sister is a Unitarian and a humanist and had a very jaundiced view of my father’s authority. They are 6 and 7 years older than I.

What complicated things for me was that my oldest sister (the ultra-fundamentalist one who lived over 100 miles away) took the biblical passage to honor one’s father and mother to mean that she should obey him. She didn’t understand at the time that the roles had been reversed and that his decisions were not in his best interests because he didn’t understand the world around him. She didn’t have to deal with the consequences of her actions.

He wanted to go home, when his wife couldn’t take care of him because she was too old and not a nurse like my mother had been, and, because cost was such an important thing to him (he could well afford the care) that he shouldn’t be told how much it cost. I told my sister not to tell him what it cost. She did, and it caused innumerable problems for me and for her (of her own making).

Several years after his death, she apologized. She said that she thought that I was just trying to control her. I think my other sister let her know the trouble she caused me.

I gave my oldest sister a copy of Misquoting Jesus. I think she treated it like I do the tracts and quack medical shit she sends me.

I do love my sisters, and I’m glad that neither my parents nor my sister disconnected from me because I believed differently.

Amazing how the tables turn when the kids are taking care of the parents. I also took the Bible as Literature class! And it was another step along the path. Thanks so much for your story. So many similarities in the PK and MK worlds. Hope your “stuff” isn’t too crazy. I’m moving my mom into assisted-care this week (dementia) and so I’ll also have to let the Bunker rest for a bit. Be well ;o)