Last month, the Governor of Vermont signed a law that allows non-residents whose life expectancy is less than six months to choose to end their lives in Vermont with the aid of a willing Vermont physician.

Medical assistance in dying is controversial.  But watching my husband Peter suffer with no food or water for eight interminable days because he chose not to go on with his much-diminished quality of life has persuaded me that this option should be available for mentally competent individuals with no hope for recovery.

I am not trying to persuade others to agree with me about medical aid in dying.   What I would ask is that those who have a terminal illness and are supported by their families in their decision to die on their own terms be permitted to do so.

In Massachusetts where I live, a bill to allow this choice has never come out of committee and thus the legislature has not been able to vote on this issue.

Many residents support bringing this legislation to the floor of the Massachusetts State House this session.

I am one of them.

From time to time, I miss products that used to be part of my everyday life.  For example, there was a store-bought-cookie that Peter and I loved.  It was about the size of a 50-cent piece, (remember those?) covered with cinnamon and powdered sugar, The cookies bounced around in a sealed white paper bag, sugar-coating our fingers as we dug in.

Because the name of the brand escaped me, I spent way-too-much time Googling "out-of-production cookies," and although I found things like Red Velvet Oreos, I failed to find the cookie we loved.

I do recall Peter's complaining on several occasions that we are out of synch with the world because things we like seem to fail the “stickiness” test.

It’s been a while since I have felt the need to complain that products were better in the olden days.  Then last week, I got a serious cold.  I went through a box of tissues in record time.  And this is the question it raised for me:

Whatever happened to two-ply Kleenex?

Our journalist son Seth once referred to his mother and father in print as “classical-music-loving parents”.  He was right then, and he would be right now.  That doesn’t mean I can’t bear to listen to other music. I just have my preferences.

According to NewYork Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, “it seems like classical music is getting hotter.”  And the general manager of New York’s Metropolitan Opera reports that the average age of its audience used to be in the 60’s, and now it is in the 40’s.

This is good news.

But in my classical music concert-going this year, gray hair still predominated. And Gillette Stadium’s 65,878 seats for each of Taylor Swift’s recent three sold-out concerts seemed to have a pretty young crowd, reportedly 78% of which were in the 18-34 age group.

Yet, it warms my heart that those hard-working, long studying classical musicians are seeing a new generation in the audience.

Mozart would be pleased.

I have very mixed emotions about seeing Martha Stewart, at age eighty-one, on the cover of the 2023 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.  You are probably familiar with all the amazing things Martha Stewart has accomplished over her eighty-one years, including being a white-collar criminal who was jailed for five months for lying about a stock sale. Oh, and she’s also a billionaire.

I think about ageism a lot, and I personally see this as an illustration of a kind of reverse ageism.  No woman is expected to look fantastic in a swimsuit at Martha’s age.  Clearly a lot of work has been done to her body, (some her own efforts at Pilates, etc) but to me, this sends an inaccurate message about what we can hope to be as 80-somethings.

Maybe this is sour grapes on my part.  I wonder what others think.

How true.

And into my life, my son Seth’s diagnosis of a pituitary adenoma was a downpour. In simple terms, his pituitary gland was producing too much growth hormone causing his hands, feet and facial features to enlarge.  A rare condition, it requires a highly skilled neurosurgeon to remove the growth because the gland is dangerously close to the brain.

No one wants her child’s brain cavity poked around in, so my anxiety level was high. Of course, Seth was pleased to have an explanation for the odd things going on in his body.  He even arranged with the doctors and the hospital to video the surgery so that he could a) see it and b) share it with his Amigo Gringo YouTube fans.  (Don’t ask me why.)

Anyhow, the surgery is over. and the recovery has begun.  Each day, light and noise become less unbearable.  It’s a relatively long recovery (especially for his mother).

I can’t resist saying that after a little rainfall, the son shines.

How true. And into my life, my son Seth’s diagnosis of a pituitary adenoma was a downpour. In simple terms, his pituitary gland was producing too much growth hormone causing his hands, feet and facial features to enlarge.  A rare condition, it requires a highly skilled neurosurgeon to remove the growth because the gland is dangerously close to the brain.

No one wants her child’s brain cavity poked around in, so my anxiety level was high. Of course, Seth was pleased to have an explanation for the odd things going on. He even arranged with the doctors and the hospital to video the surgery so that he could a) see it and b) share it with his Amigo Gringo Youtube fans.  (Don’t ask me why.)

Anyhow, the surgery is over. and the recovery has begun.  Each day, light and noise become less unbearable.  It’s a relatively long recovery (especially for his mother).

I can’t resist saying that after a little rainfall, the son shines.

Unless you were living under a rock from 1989 until 1998, you know about a TV series called “Seinfeld”. You probably watched it.  

Nielsen Reports tells us that the show is still popular, although more than 40% of those watching now were not born when it originally aired.

But like the rest of us, the stars have grown older.  Now, at age 62 Julia Louis-Dreyfus, better known as “Elaine” has a podcast called Wiser Than Me.  And upon the recommendation of my son Seth, I listened to it.

I recommend Louis-Dreyfus' interview with Isabel Allende, Chilean-born author of dozens of books, perhaps the best known being The House of the Spirits. She shares her wisdom about life at 80 in a charming way. She tells us that the only person she has to please is herself.  I like that.  She also reports that she and her current husband have a robust sex life, the success of which she attributes to cocoa-dusted blueberries infused with marijuana.

Sounds good to me.

Everyone has/had a mother.  But not every woman wants to be a mother.  And I think that the choice to be a mother resides in the body of the person who will bear the child. Others disagree, and this is not a blog post about that issue.

What I can say without reservation is that being a mother may be my favorite thing (most of the time, anyway). My boys are good people.  For that, I don’t take credit. (I also don’t take blame.) I love seeing Peter’s great sense of humor (and Peter would add his good looks) live on in our children.  I love that they are responsible citizens.  They vote.  They volunteer.  They are grateful.

I suspect that I will hear from them today and that they will thank me for being a good mother.  I want to thank them for making that possible.

Happy Mother’s Day.

The year 2000 was a big one for our family.  Our first-born turned 30; his brother graduated from business school.  And Peter turned 70.  I managed to get my dream-trip to Africa on everyone’s calendar.

It took a lot of advanced notice, and some complaining by our kids about my sending a how-to-prepare-spreadsheet months ahead of the trip, but I got my yearned-for-visit to Africa accepted as a celebration of all the events noted above. 

I’m not big on buying souvenirs, but I did bring home a pair of black socks decorated with guinea hens.  Twenty-three years later, I'm still wearing them although they are threadbare as can be.

Somehow, I can’t bring myself to throw them out.

Of course, 96 years is a good long life.  But somehow, I wasn’t prepared for the death of Harry Belafonte.  I think I wore out my “long playing” record of “Calypso” (1956).  But Belafonte was so much more than our introduction to music of the Caribbean. 

He was a supreme entertainer (Calypso was the first million-selling album by a single artist) and a tireless activist.  Not to mention, extremely good looking. 

In the summer of 1958, in Florence, Italy, my friend Joanie and I were in a small ice cream parlor when Harry Belafonte himself walked in.  He turned to us and said, “Oh typical American girls having to have their ice cream.” It was a definite highlight of the trip.

The other night, thanks to YouTube, I listened to all of my Belafonte favorites.  I sang at the top of my lungs.  

Fortunately, I live alone.