Preface / Introduction Beautiful articles written by a son of his father facing his changing circumstances and choosing to create

his own destiny. "Thoughts on assisted living, aging, Dad, and guilt." "'... before the darkness falls.' Thoughts on my father's last home, changing places and the pains that make us human." "'Many a new day... I'll scrub my neck and I'll brush my hair and start all over again." My father, Oklahoma, life, hope."

Table of Contents
1. Thoughts on assisted living, aging, Dad, and guilt. 2. '... before the darkness falls.' Thoughts on my father's last home, changing places and the painsthat make us human. 3. 'Many a new day... I'll scrub my neck and I'll brush my hair and start all over again." My father,Oklahoma, life, hope.

A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life!

Thoughts on assisted living, aging, Dad, and guilt.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. Here is the most important four-letter word in the entire English language: home. It conjures up and is connected to every element of the well-lived life: spouse, family, peace, comfort, security. Nothing can match its importance, nothing can duplicate its significance. Nothing is more powerful than our memories of home and their enduring pull, always tugging at our heart strings. Home and its rhythms, its well remembered aspects, its secrets, its traditions, its confidences, its ways so well known and carefully maintained... these have a power over us that never fails, never pales, never wavers, never diminishes, and are always clear, fresh, joyful, unforgettable, bittersweet, haunting, the sweetest memories of our entire life. This is an article on the moment that comes to each of us... when this home, our very special, irreplaceable place, must be given up because its proprietors can no longer maintain it, now needing particular care themselves. This is an article about a moment poignant, sad, dreadful, irrevocable. It is about the people who take this step first, our parents... then about their children, us, who will trod the difficult road, too, but not yet... and what they must do today, a day of emotional turmoil, distress, a day for which all preparation is inadequate. For this article I have selected the song "My Old Kentucky Home" (1852) by America's first great composer, Stephen Foster. It is one of the most wistful, longing songs of our country... and whenever one hears it one thinks, and tearful too, of one's own home, now gone, far away, never to be replaced, always to be remembered, the more so as the destination you are now going to can never be a home like the one left behind. Go now to any search engine. Find and play it at once. It is the perfect accompaniment to this article. The call. The call we all fear, cannot bear thinking about, but must think about -- comes the day our aging parents first consider assisted living, whether outwardly calm and willing, or fighting the hopeless battle to avoid this fate, roiled by turbulent emotions deep within, so clearly visible without. Assisted living. The words "assisted living" are two of the most frightening and disturbing in our language. It is easy to see why. Assisted living is mostly the province of the retired, the ill, the aging, geriatric survivors of better times. As such it is a venue to be put off and avoided whenever possible, for as long as possible; as much so as if each assisted living facility had posted at its front door this immemorial admonition from Dante's "Inferno": "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." Such institutions are perceived as the final way station before cosmic extinction; the place one enters unhappy, angry, misunderstood, and which one leaves dead; the place for the irremediably old, those who are past it, marginal, unconsidered, beyond the care and concern of anyone other than those paid to care and be concerned; lonely people of the Eleanor Rigby variety. All of life... Assisted living, with its implied inadequacies and dependence, is always and often indignantly compared to the joy of independent living, where you do what you want, when you want, with whom you want, in just the way you want; in other words the kind of living each of us desires, insists upon, and does everything possible to maintain. Assisted living, of course, is widely perceived as the antithesis of the desired independent living. But this is wrong.

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life! ALL living is assisted living. For unless you are rabidly antisocial and determined to remain that way, alone, isolated, happy and contented in your aloneness, you are assisted -- every single day -by people whose aim is to make you reasonably happy, reasonably content, and reasonably comfortable. Thus, in truth, when one moves from living regarded as independent to living regarded as assisted, one is evolving from one kind of care to another kind of care; one is tweaking circumstances the better to ensure the maximum continuation of your desired life style. One is not undergoing metamorphosis, but comparative and necessary improvement. Sadly, most people undergoing this process are unable to see this, or at least to state it to guilt-ridden relatives who are thus distressed by the painful thought that Aunt Martha is being cast off rather than moved to an appropriate level of care, concern, and consideration. Most assisted living facilities these days resemble college campuses or resorts; they know the grief, anger, recriminations and distress which new residents bring and work hard to create an atmosphere that is at once attractive, even beautiful; livable, practical, and serene, factors which soothe the guilt of those recommending assisted living to those near and dear but are often dismissed as inadequate or unimportant by those being recommended into the facility. Receiving the intelligence. Twice in my life, so far, have I been a participant to greater or lesser degree, in conversations surrounding the movement of one near and beloved to assisted living. The first such conversations involved my mother; the second set involved my father. These conversations could hardly have been less similar -- or more instructive about the principals involved and affected. My mother, student of Dylan Thomas that she was, did not, nor could not, go gentle into this good night. She raged, raged against what she was sure was the dying of the light. Despite weakening health and the myriad of problems stemming therefrom my mother fought hard, strenuously, vociferously, painfully against the notion of "incarceration" in an assisted living facility, thereby branded as penal institution, not comfortable necessity. Her transition from living deemed independent to living deemed assisted was therefore protracted, painful, packed with imprecations, denigrations, accusations, maledictions which made Emile Zola's famous declaration "J'accuse" look sniveling. My father handled the matter entirely different... and I suspect this was partly because he will have with him his wife Ellie; to be alone at life's end is painful; to be partnered with a loved mate lessons the pain while increasing the means to combat and to live with it. Sad, wistful, practical, accepting. When my father called yesterday to inform me that he and Ellie had made arrangements to share their dwindling, most precious days together in assisted living, I felt a lump in my throat. He extolled the grounds, their private apartment, the food, the friendly residents... but whether he believed all this as stated or was just trying out what would become the stock reason or their move, I cannot say... for I was reflecting on a few words that he had said. Entering the dining room where they would find their daily meals, he was surprised to find it peopled with the old, feeble, and infirm. Could this be he at 86, Ellie at 87? Or had some mistake occurred? She, knowing how difficult it had to be for him to transform his independent life to one "assisted", took his hand and reassured him that no mistake was made; they were in the right place, which he would soon know, if he did not know already. And thus these proud, fiercely independent souls, more used to assisting others than being assisted, move into the next phase of their lives, together, facts faced, practical decisions made, gently, calmly, with love and care. And I admired my father so, not merely as son to father, but as man to man. For he faced the difficult, the fearful, the

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life! unpalatable, with grace, quietude, reserve, with good judgement, good humor, and a good wife, well stocked and ready for the journey ahead... which they will travel similarly and with kindness, above all with kindless and the help of those glad to assist them, and with kindness too. ** We invite you to post your comments to this article.

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life!

'... before the darkness falls.' Thoughts on my father's last home, changing places and the pains that make us human.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. It is 3:07 a.m. here in the East. It is not so much that I cannot sleep. Rather, it's that I don't want to. I am thinking about my father as I often do. He is undoubtedly asleep now, has gotten safely through another day and will awake in due course to the promise of another. In other words, he is being well taken care of, and I don't need to worry, the Number One Son in Massachusetts; he in California. But I do worry... "Jeffrey, let me ask you..." He called me the other day, with that note of concern I've come to know and which bites me so. "Jeffrey let me ask you..." and so it started. Another chip to the father-son relationship which defined and guided us for so many years, now as ancient as the hills. Things between us, once well defined and wary, are changing now; changing, changing... we neither of us like it, but the realities of living always pulverize our mere wishes... and because we are living, we must still live, no matter how painful that may be. And it often is... He asks. "Jeffrey, you've never had a house have you?" "No, Dad, I never did." "You've always lived in an apartment, haven't you?" "Yes, Dad, I have." "You like it, don't you?" "Yes, Dad, I do." "Why's that?" "Well, for openers I don't have to take out the garbage... or plant the flowers... or paint the fence... " And the list goes on. "You used to hate doing those things, didn't you?" "Yes, Dad, every minute, every single one. I wanted to read. You wanted me to wash the windows." There is more than a little bit of asperity, accusation and unresolved irritation in my voice. I am 65, it all happened a half century ago and more; it shouldn't matter, but it does. Memory makes the long ago the active and unresolved, still on my agenda of things compelling attention. I might wish it doesn't matter, but it does. "I do not plant or reap." Now the benefits of apartment living pour forth. I discover I am defending my choices, as children of any age feel compelled to do from time to time. To live the life I want takes teams of people taking care of me. I am used to this and rely on them to do the necessary. This is how the privileged classes of history have lived; it is how I always wanted to live; it is how I live; it is how I want him to live; it is how he should live in this his too fast dwindling of days. But he is of a different time and place, a time of self-reliance, where if you wanted warmth in winter, you chopped fire wood and so warmed yourself twice. I hated this work... and I hated all such things... things that obstructed the life I wanted; the life waiting for me, beckoning me, insinuating itself into every thought. "I am what you want, what you must have," and I couldn't wait to seize it. The myriad versions of chopping wood were important, but they were never imperative, like the dream that enthralled me. And thus there were problems and a battle that waxed and waned, but never stopped. However he is not criticizing, judging, he is seeking something perhaps only I can give: confirmation that he has done the right thing, for with assisted living, without responsibilities, comes

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life! an avalanche of doubts, uncertainties, and the kinds of anxieties which force one to sit bolt upright in dead of night... and wonder... "Jeffrey, I don't like not having a home anymore." But he does have a home. It's in a wonderful facility that looks like a college campus or place on a golf course. He and Miss Ellie, his wife, did not rush their choice. They looked at the full range of possibilities, moved with due deliberation, not haste. Visited, revisited, discussed, revisited. There was no rush about it, though it was apparent to both a decision must be made and made while they were both entirely able to make it. He recalls each house he has ever owned. He is remembering now and my role is clear. I must hear what he says, completely... and I must pledge (though he doesn't say so) to remember. And so a chant begins; of houses built or bought; houses turned into homes and profits; a lifetime of patient acquisition and certain return. "I have always made money on every house we ever lived in." And he recites them now, not to brag, but so that he is sure I know and will remember. My memory is tenacious; he knows that, and so the litany begins... from 4906 Woodward Avenue, which he built with his own hands (and partly mine)... His eyes are closed now and as he recalls, he recites; my eyes are closed, too, and I am remembering with him... and these, his memories of being a good father, chary of his resources, patiently awaiting the results he foresaw and planned for, are clear, poignant, bittersweet. And triumphant. For he wants me to know, and to sear into my mind that he made money enough for his family, enough for himself and Miss Ellie so they would burden no one, and something for the next generation, too. He was proud, as he had the right to be; not arrogant. He knew what he was due... and knew that I would give it, full measure. We who had often engaged in combat and dispute fully understood each word now, each recollection, each and every nuance, delivered with sureness and finality... for on this subject there was nothing more to say... and we were both glad he had done so, so well, every word apt, every description complete and accurate. He was tired now. So was I. It is often said that as parents and children age they reverse roles. But this is not entirely true. Instead a situation infinitely more complex and difficult emerges; a situation where the parent may remain the parent as well as the child and where the child may be in an instant not just one but both, thereby dramatically increasing the possibilities for confusion; things clear to one, misunderstood by the other. It would be easier, far easier, if a simple role reversal took place, clear to each, but this is not the way it is for either party. And so, before the darkness falls, we need to learn, again who we are, who they are, what they need and must have, what we have that we may give and give still more. In short, we must at their end begin again, new roles to learn and urgent, too, for the darkness is nigh and there is much to learn and do before the end. Thus one of the most important, revealing and timely conversations of my life ended; we were weary and needed rest. The meeting, by phone, ended as easily as a sigh. We had done what needed to be done. But I had one more thing to do, one more thing to listen to, to ponder. Bruce Springsteen's 1982 evocation "My Father's House." And I went to a search engine to play it. I urge you to find it now... and ready yourself for a melody and lyrics which cut deep and place an unrelenting memory in you. ""Last night I dreamed that I was a child... I was trying to make it home... before the darkness falls I ran with my heart pounding down that broken path... I broke through the trees and there in the night

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life! My father's house stood shining hard and bright the branches and brambles tore my clothes and scratched my arms But I ran till I fell shaking in his arms." Now I can do as much for him... and must.

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life!

'Many a new day... I'll scrub my neck and I'll brush my hair and start all over again." My father, Oklahoma, life, hope.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant Author's program note. He waited a spell before he said it, no doubt carefully looking for just the right moment to tell me, knowing that the intelligence would be unwelcome, even unsettling, certainly life changing, therefore potentially dangerous, a thing to be approached and dealt with as if holding a radio active element with tongs. Yes, hazardous indeed... "I'm going to do it," he said... I didn't need to be told what "it" was, I knew. And to tell the strict truth, he had laid down a trail of clues, hints and innuendos for months just like Hansel and Gretel with their bread crumbs. But that was just conjecture, a possibility, table talk to be treated as serious or not depending on how many pieces of pie had been ingested whilst the subject was under discussion. One slice meant not likely, two suggested a distinct possibility, and any more than two he was packing his trunk bidding the world to catch up or eat his dust... and there is nothing more serious than that. Quo vadis? Could it be just as simple as the simple fact that humans like to see what is on the other side of that hill over yonder? "Why did the chicken cross the road?", my father used to ask the unwary. "Why, to get to the other side", and then he'd laugh as you would laugh at a rube from the city who didn't know up from down. Maybe we're programmed by the Ultimate Authority to leave hearth and home... in pursuit of the "something better" we're sure is our individual and collective destiny. I used to wonder about this when I was growing up. Why did Abraham Lincoln's family, for instance, move so much... to Virginia...to Kentucky... to Indiana... to Illinois? Were they reckless, feckless, incapable of staying put and turning the good into the better? Or were they far sighted visionaries who had to go because remaining would have been so much easier and thus beneath them, for they were a proud, assertive people and knew they were worthy of any benefit they might dream of and seize? They called that destiny, and it was manifest to each of them... and so they went on their travels to achieve it... as they so often did. To move was to live and so they must go until their very last journey to their eternal destination. Just a year ago. It's been just about a year now since this journey seemed likely for him. His wife, my step-mother Miss Ellie, slipped into the hereafter as easily as taking a breath. We were advised to expect the worst, at any time. As for him he looked like he was waiting for the Grim Reaper to open the door of the Black Mariah and escort him to forever. He suddenly seemed ancient, frail, ready, resigned, even eager for what was coming. Waiting seemed pointless, aggravating, irritating, and a threat to the perfect tableau of death we were all constructing, more to show ourselves that we had given him a good send-off, the send-off he had waited a lifetime to get and which must showcase him with all due respect, love, and the certainty that he had received his due, every jot and tittle.

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life! "I'm ready for whenever the Good Lord takes me". The vital concerns of daily life were no longer part of his reality. He had put his foot on the next road, the final road... but in the event he did not commence the journey. Everything, everyone was ready for the new, sleek, easy as snap, crackle, and pop, 3-step, "Howdie, ma'am", quick speed, strip the corpse and burn it American way of death, prayers extra. We were awaiting this... we were prepared for this... we knew how to do this. But then the unexpected occurred, the thing that upset the apple cart. He lived. And this startled us, astounded us, and forced us to change the game plan, just as he was having to do. ("I can still catch the 4.45 to Chicago if I run.") What is it that causes a man whose deteriorating condition has prompted the urgent and adamant communications of a posse of medical personnel to stop the process of withdrawal and expiration and live again? The sapient physicians will cite a given tablet or therapy. Family members and friends will speak confidently of the infinite power of love, whilst the still living being at the center of the conundrum says God's will, which despite a legion of disbelieving scientists remains credible, vibrant, and reassuring. And so the first of many a new day dawned on an enigma, with awe, relief, joy, and a renewed commitment to life, the most important condition of our human reality, for without it nothing is possible. With it, everything is. "O Death where is thy sting?" Now what? The process of dying is the average Joe's only opportunity to enjoy the prerogatives and privileges of a prince. At the court of Louis XIV, for instance, when the king was ill, and especially when the king lay dying (1715) the smell of his gangrene overpowered the combined perfumes of the gentlemen of France. Learned physicians from the Sorbonne in their long, sweeping silk gowns would troop ensemble to la chambre du roi to sniff his evacuations and render their opinion about his longevity; an opinion on which the future of many gentlemen rested, for to be too early in leaving the old regime... or too late in embracing the new... had the most serious consequences. "Charme' " was the highest rating for what they passed in chamber pot under their fastidious noses and minute review. "Charme'" meant life. In our death averse civilization, where we hope that mentioning the matter as little as possible will forestall its certain existence and execution, each of us becomes as much the center of affairs as the Sun King himself. As death approaches, we are admitted, weighed, dieted, measured, wheel chaired, analyzed, observed, discussed, considered, reconsidered, lamented, wept over, wept for, babied, prayed for, praised, kissed (including by total strangers), fluffed, boxed, organized, advised, critiqued, photographed, questioned, listened to, eulogized, spruced up, sent flowers, sent candy, send cakes and cookies... and this is only part of our way of death. All this is done for you on the expectation that you will do your share, namely be as upbeat and cheerful as possible; that you will go through all the necessary and inevitable steps promptly, without inconveniencing anyone by failing to adhere to their (always brisk) schedule for your demise, and that at the end of the day you die... allowing the final obsequies to occur and every cliche in the calendar thought, given, photographed, videotaped, and complimented by one and all at how well it had gone. Next! But he did not die despite the panoply of preparations, expectations, and the learned opinions of every professional engaged in the matter. The lead physician in the case called me one afternoon and

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life! told me with the polished certainties of the medical ilk that death was scheduled for T minus 5 hours and counting. And that was that. Only it wasn't. To the surprise of all, including the principal actor himself, the consternation of many, and the downright irritation of some (those whose prayers and presentations had been the most ostentatious), the man known to history as Donald Marshall Lant lived... thereby being continued in the dicey, unpredictable, messy and often baffling business of living, rather than the adamant certainties of death. For instance, when he returned alive to the dining room of the assisted living facility where he had last been discussed and hugged as a certain goner, there was a notable frisson, as if he had farted in the elevator; it was, it seemed, mal vu to return alive after such a perfect farewell. "Forgotten but not gone", as one wag quipped. What a comedown for the man who expected to wake up in the bosom of the Lord, amongst the saints who are marching in, most assuredly one of their high-stepping number. But instead he lived... and that was the greatest gift of all, the rest certain to occur in due course but put aside for now. There could still be, would be dreams... and these dreams could still come true in the many a new day that were now his. Thus he was informing me, not asking my permission or inviting my opinion but acting like the patriarch he had been for so long. He was leaving the California where he had lived so long and with such comfort and contentment and moving to Oklahoma. He had a list of "reasons" at the ready, my brother and his simpatica wife of long standing were near at hand, the cost of living was dramatically lower, and, perhaps though unstated, the poignant memories of Miss Ellie were too potent and bittersweet in the suite where they had loved and lost each other. But there was, I think, one more reason, that to stay ensconced in the verdant grandeur of California was like waiting for the inevitability of death, a condition that sapped the joy from everything and left him dispirited and low. Motion meant life... and he still had life to spend and in abundance. Thus whilst I advanced reasons for caution and deliberation, his mind and imagination raced ahead, Rodgers and Hammerstein giving him in "Oklahoma" (1943) not just one of the most lyric of their incomparable repertoire but the best reason of all: I sang off key "Many a new face will please my eye", and he instantly responded off key, "Many a new love will find me." Then I knew for a certainty many a new day would dawn for him and that these would be the best of all. Envoi. Go now to any search engine, and play "Many A New Day" and let this plucky song work its happy magic for you.

Resource
About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting,

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A Man's Home is his Castle. Of Assisted Living and a New Lease on Life! hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Patrice Porter http://20WaystoProfit.com.

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