William Tozier's "Real weirdos, wandering far off in the forest, quite distant from the American Way"I would put my hand on your shoulder now, if I could. This is just the way the world is, friend. You can do nothing that seems reasonable. You cannot petition, or vote, or pray, or complain, or pay vast amounts of money to the Right Doctors, or call upon younger, loving, supporting, relatives for help and expect there to be any real difference. You have one choice, and yet it is amazingly not the choice most Americans in our class actually ever consider: will you participate the period of life when your parents are aging and dying, or remove yourself from it?
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In the end we do age and decline. And before we die most of us get very sick, we lose more or less of our dignity, and we come to rely on the care of others. Our homes, our health, our social roles, and our abilities are all gradually tugged and yanked out from under us by uncontrollable forces, until we’re either knocked to the ground by a sudden jerk, or left standing on entirely unfamiliar ground.
¶ 1:04 PM
