Tea at Trianon: 5 Final Years Conversations to Begin Now

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, November 19, 2018

5 Final Years Conversations to Begin Now

From Caregiver Stress:

Who wants to think about a time without their loved ones? Or that moment when you take one long, last look into your mother’s eyes. Someday, your own children will be facing that heartache. “It’s a very sad thing,” noted Harriet Warshaw, executive director of the Conversation Project. “No one seems to want to talk about it so the topic is easy to avoid. In fact, every culture has their own taboos around death,” she said. For example, in modern-day European-based folklore, death is known as the "Grim Reaper" or "The grim spectre of death.” This form typically wields a scythe, and is sometimes portrayed riding a white horse.

And yet, at an individual level, people do want to talk, Warshaw has found. University of Nebraska at Omaha Gerontologist Dr. Julie Masters agrees, and finds that telling others about her profession often opens the door to interesting dialogues about death. As a result, many times people share their own preferences for the end of their lives. “In the book ‘Being Mortal,’ author Atul Gawande writes, ‘Death, of course, is not a failure.

Death may be the enemy, but it is also the natural order of things,’” Masters explains. Research corroborates the desire that individuals have to discuss these issues. In a survey conducted by Home Instead, Inc., franchisor of the Home Instead Senior Care^® network, nearly three in four seniors who have made plans for their final years have discussed them with their adult children, and half of those did so to let them know everything will be OK. (Read more.)