Platitudes and Attitudes

Platitudes and Attitudes: The difference between what is said, and what is meant


Recently I was involved in a meeting to discuss the placement of my mother-in-law into an assisted living facility. This meeting occurred due to my efforts for giving her the final days of her life she had worked her entire life to achieve. This seemed fair, honorable, and a right, which should accrue to every human being. Boy was I wrong.

This woman had through her efforts alone, acquired two homes, paid for, a sizable cash balance, and every resource possible to guarantee the ending she had designed for her final years. Oh, the darkness of deed, for one of the decisions she had made was the giving of an unlimited power-of-attorney to a family member to insure her wishes were fulfilled. An aside and warning: any attorney who would allow their client to enact a non-limited power-of-attorney should be lynched. The upshot of this error has resulted in her wishes being usurped and her placement in an assisted care facility. Now realize this has occurred against her wishes, and every other member of the family, except the holder of the power-of-attorney, who justifies their action by pointing to the errors of upbringing inflicted by this woman. Boo hoo, all things are founded in cause and effect, and therefore, that is why we are instructed, Judge not, lest there-by yea shall be judged.”

For your information; all other members of the family are willing to join together to provide every opportunity for her wishes to be fulfilled, including moving into her home to provide care and company for her final years. I am sorry to say the result of the above meeting was a determination this effort would be detrimental to her well-being. Yes, love and caring would be harmful (and less financially beneficial to the system), so she is sentenced to imprisonment, and to spend her final years among strangers, while waiting for her occasional visit, with which we hope to assuage our conscience.

My determination from this meeting is this. What was said is that, “oh this is really best for her well being.” What was meant is, “this is really best for our convenience.” I find this a disgusting proclivity of our current society. We are each, and everyone responsible for the world we inhabit. Part of that responsibility is the honoring of our commitment to those who made our existence possible, regardless of their flaws. Considering their trials and travails, I for one am willing to assume the best, and believe they gave the best they were capable of providing, after that it is your job. Quit sniveling, and do your job. I for one have never read anywhere that life was supposed to be easy, I believe it is meant to be lived.

I am heart sick and disgusted by what we have become. I know, there is another way, and if we do not begin the process of restructuring our goals, we are doomed to failure as specie, and a society.


K. I. Smet