Three rights make a left.

Hello Everyone:

  My Dad sent me this article.  He's worried about me - I went through a rough period, as you all know, and this is his way of cheering me up.  It's him telling me that he loves me.  

  I don't know who wrote the article.  I enjoyed it, and I hope I learned a bit from it.  I hope you enjoy it as well.

  Remember to watch those left turns!

hugs

My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I
should say I never saw him drive a car.

He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car
he drove was a 1926 Whippet.

"In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car
you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and
look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and
enjoy it or drive through life and miss it."

At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in:
"Oh, baloney!" she said. "He hit a horse."

"Well," my father said, "there was that, too."

So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The
neighbors all had cars - the Kollingses next door had a green
1941Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth,
the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford - but we had none.

My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to
work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the
streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks
to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.

My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and
sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but
we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain,
and that was that.

But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys
turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us
would turn 16 first.

But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my
parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts
department at a Chevy dealership downtown.

It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded
with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less
became my brother's car.

Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father,
but it didn't make sense to my mother.

So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach
her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I
learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I
took my two sons to practise driving. The cemetery probably was my
father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember
him saying more than once.

For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the
driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of
direction, but he loaded up on maps - though they seldom left the city
limits - and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work.

Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout
Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that
didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of
marriage.

(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)

He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20
years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church.
She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the
back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that
morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a
2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking
her home.

If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and
then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and
"Father Slow."

After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother
whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If
she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or
go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running
so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then,
when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire
on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so
the multimillionaire on third base scored."

If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry
the bags out - and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said,
he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88
and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a
long life?"

"I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.

"No left turns," he said.

"What?" I asked.

"No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I
read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen
when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic.

"As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your
depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to
make a left turn."

"What?" I said again.

"No left turns," he said. "Think about it.. Three rights are the
same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three
rights."

"You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support.
"No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It
works."
But then she added: "Except when your father loses count."

I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I
started laughing.

"Loses count?" I asked.

"Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a
problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again."

I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked.

"No," he said, " If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call
it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put
off another day or another week."
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me
her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in
1999, when she was 90.

She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next
year, at 102.

They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and
bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother
and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom - the house
had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew
the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

He continued to walk daily - he had me get him a treadmill when he
was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted
to keep exercising - and he was of sound mind and sound body until the
moment he died.

One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I
had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three
of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging
conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.

A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first
hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point
in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going
to live much longer."

"You're probably right," I said.

"Why would you say that?" he countered, somewhat irritated.

"Because you're 102 years old," I said.

"Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day.

That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with
him through the night.

He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing
us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No
one in this room is dead yet."

An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:

"I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no
pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone
on this earth could ever have."

A short time later, he died.

I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now
and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so
long.

I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life, Or because

he quit taking left turns.

Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right.
Forget about the ones who don't.
Believe everything happens for a reason.
If you get a chance, take it & if it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely
be worth it."

Even the best things must end....

Because even the best of things must end, I guess I'm ok with it.  But, I hurt for a long time.....   
I have gone separate ways of the rescue organization with whom I so enjoyed working alongside.  My poor Gracie was the recipient of many hugs, and I think she is still unsure of what the wall did to receive such a punch.
   But, knowing that I gave my best to them, that I did nothing wrong,  and knowing that they have actually shown themselves to be very concerned about the welfare of the animals and not very concerned about the welfare of people, I am ok leaving.  I will take the wonderful lessons, the great memories, and the strength that I learned working with them.       I leave them themselves.

  I will miss the dogs, though.

  

I'm of two minds on this letter. What do you think?

You may recall a post I did a couple days ago.  Same person wrote this.  What do you think?

~randy

:

DYING VET’S ‘FUCK YOU’ LETTER TO GEORGE BUSH & DICK CHENEY NEEDS TO BE READ BY EVERY AMERICAN

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all—the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans—my fellow veterans—whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

—Tomas Young

Dedicated to my Friend Scottie. For a laugh.

What does it mean to live a dignified life?  

Does it mean that we can have a dignified death?






http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/14/us/anti-war-vet-suicide/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

Here is the article.  You may want to simply go to the linked page and see the original - it is easier to read there.  -randy

(CNN) -- Tomas Young's life nearly ended nine years ago when he was riding in the back of a water truck in Baghdad's Sadr City. Two rounds from a sniper's AK-47 hit him; the first severed his spinal cord and the second shattered his left knee.

Modern-day medicine saved him. A critically acclaimed 2007 documentary, "Body of War," made his injuries -- and objections to the Iraq war -- widely known.

Now, he lies again on the verge of death.

This time, he is not in a bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center but on a futon in his home in Kansas City, Missouri. This time, no one is trying desperately to keep him alive. Young wants to die.

Tomas Young attended the premiere of "Body of War" at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007.

He is tired of nine years of suffering. Of sitting paralyzed from the chest down in a wheelchair, of losing dexterity in his hands, of slurred speech, skin ulcers, nausea, urinary tract infections and, most of all, the constant pain. He cannot eat on his own, and a while ago he decided he would reject his medications and feeding tube and allow himself to waste away.

2008: A look at 'Body of War'

Young, 33, might have died quietly in the privacy of his home, with his wife of one year, Claudia Cuellar, and his mother, Cathy Smith, by his bedside. Except that in February, he announced his intention to end his life.

He appeared via Skype before a Connecticut crowd gathered for a screening of "Body of War" and told them of his decision.

It was a night that Joseph Consentino will never forget. As founder of the Ridgefield Playhouse Film Society, Consentino, himself a documentarian, had arranged for Young to answer questions after the film was shown. Former talk show host and "Body of War" co-director Phil Donahue was also on hand.

The audience was stunned, Consentino recalled Friday. "But the amazing part was everyone seemed to understand why he was doing this."

His intention became more widely known about a month later, on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, when Young penned a scathing letter to former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Written at the behest of the progressive online news website Truthdig, Young's letter laid out the circumstances of his life and blamed Bush and Cheney for all the casualties of the war.

325 army suicides in 2012 a record

"My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on Earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness."

The letter went viral. Young's life was again out there for millions to see. If they had not known of the wounded-vet-turned-activist before, they knew his story now.

He was 22 when he watched Bush stand at ground zero and pledge to avenge the killing of Americans in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Young called a recruiter, and two days later he was enlisted into the Army. He stood ready to fight in Afghanistan and hunt down Osama bin Laden, but instead, in spring 2004, he found himself with the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq. He had not been in Sadr City five days before he was ambushed.

"I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States," Young wrote in his letter.

"On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure," Young wrote. "And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences."

"Body of War" captured his anger about Iraq. It also showed how difficult his life had become. In one scene, Young's mother struggles to insert a catheter while they are in a car. They turn it into a moment of dark humor. It was Young's verve for life portrayed in that film that struck viewers. They were left perplexed when Young announced he'd had enough of watching his body deteriorate.

Since the movie was made, the quality of Young's life has spiraled downward. In 2008, a blood clot traveled to his lung and affected his brain. Then last year, doctors removed his colon in hopes of relieving pain in his abdomen.

These days, he can hardly move. A pump at his side helps him inject painkillers. His speech is so slurred that it's difficult to understand him. His hair and beard are thick. He seldom leaves his bed; his bedsores eat at his flesh. He takes a dizzying assortment of more than 30 different pills every day.

On the front line of our communities

Sometimes, Cuellar, 43, sees a vacant stare when she looks into her husband's eyes.

On the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, Young penned a scathing letter to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

"He was catatonic, exhausted after all that treatment," she said.

He hoped to reach his first wedding anniversary on April 20. After that, he planned to begin to die.

He said Thursday that he now wants to live through one last baseball season -- he loves the game and is excited that his hometown Kansas City Royals are in first place in the AL Central. He also wants to see the Jackie Robinson biopic, "42," which opened in theaters Friday.

Really, said Cuellar, the family just needs more time together, away from the spotlight.

John Carney, executive director of the Center for Practical Bioethics in Kansas City, has been following Young's case and said it is not uncommon for people who make such a serious decision to delay it.

Young doesn't want to implicate anyone else in his death, so his plan is to stop nourishing his body.

The law gives him that right. The Patient Self-Determination Act of 1990 says that a competent adult can refuse medical or surgical treatment.

"I think it is unfair, in his case, to characterize it as he is killing himself," Carney said. "He has made the decision to stop treating himself. It's a quality of life decision that is within his right."

Young has never described his plans as suicide, but some are concerned that his actions might send the wrong signal to other struggling veterans.

Hundreds of thousands of war vets still waiting for health benefits

There are some good things in my life, but they are small in number compared to the bad things I go through.
-- Tomas Young

"I do worry that it will send a message that you can give up," said Kim Ruocco, director of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors.

"Part of what I am hearing him say is he no longer has his voice or his purpose, which was talking about the war and his injuries," she said.

In that role, he found meaning in his life, which Ruocco hopes will inspire veterans.

"I am hoping that they can see he has been able to do a lot," she said.

Jason Hansman, head of health programs of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, described Young's case as exceptional.

"I think his story altogether is unique, from the time he entered Iraq to coming home," Hansman said. "It is very much about the circumstances and the severity of the situation."

Young's story is unique also in that it has been deeply personal, political and public all at once.

Cuellar said not a single day has passed without outside intrusion since the publication of her husband's letter. There has been a flurry of media interviews. Some people call or show up because they want to show their support. Some want to dissuade him from what they say is suicide. Still others think he's a bit crazy or staging a publicity stunt.

Young says after a series of medical setbacks, he has lost his will to live.

"He is dying and wants to blame someone else for his decisions," wrote a commenter on an online forum.

Another said Young "should have faded away in another dark alley instead of going drama queen in his last moments."

In Cuellar's mind, no one has the right to criticize her husband's actions except maybe another disabled veteran.

"We've been shocked by anyone who would question Tomas," Cuellar said. "It's disrespectful to a war veteran."

Young can understand why some people might be critical, but he said they don't understand his pain.

"I know I might seem to some people like a whining baby," Young said from his home Thursday. "There are some good things in my life, but they are small in number compared to the bad things I go through."

The woman who gave birth to Young has come to terms with her son's decision.

Crisis hotline saves suicidal war veterans

"A lot of what Tomas was and who Tomas was is gone now anyway," said Cathy Smith. "I have already mourned that. So I will just pick up the pieces."

Phil Donahue, who first met Young at Walter Reed and decided to make "Body of War," said Young gave him a front-row seat to catastrophic injury. He understood when Young called him in February and told of his wish to die.

"He's been trapped in his body for nine years," Donahue said. "He wanted to live. He rallied from everything that hit him."

Young, Donahue understood, had reached his limit.

Donahue plans to visit Young in Kansas City later this month. He knows it could very well be their last time together.

Young and Cuellar said they just want to fit in quality time with close friends and family before Young dies.

"This is a roller-coaster. This is an impossible journey," Cuellar said. "Much harder for him than it is for me, but I have to simply bear witness, which is very hard."

When the time comes, she will be prepared to let her husband go.

"It's a privilege to be around someone who is dying," she said.

Ultimately, she believes Young will die vindicated for speaking out against a war that more and more Americans have come to oppose.

"My husband's story is of many people who will come home this way. It's not going to be singular," she said.

Young said he didn't really know what people might say about him after he is gone. He just wants to be remembered as a guy who was nice to be around.