Aggregate Death
The Tombstone of Hillary Clinton’s Father Vandalized
The political vitriol that surrounds US Presidential campaigns started off at rock bottom this past week.
Hillary Clinton announced her Presidential candidacy on Sunday and sometime on Monday the tombstone of her father was pushed over in the small Scranton, Pa. cemetery where he is buried.
Let’s be clear: any heinous action that is done against something that is defenseless is a clear act of cowardice.
An action that is done out of political protest to something defenseless, such as a grave, is an act of equal parts cowardice, irreverence and witlessness.
Actions like this don’t serve democracy. They provoke rage, cloud judgment and sow distrust … all of which work against intelligent discourse, solid conversation and healthy tolerance.
I don’t care how much you dislike Hillary as a person and how much you dislike her political persuasions, the desecration of a grave is simply one of the lowest acts known to humanity. Acts like this say nothing of protest, but only blind hatred.
Let’s hope the 2016 Presidential race can have more intelligent conversation than less cowardly desecration.
Scientist Confirms “Old People Smell”
© 2009 Ulrich Joho, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio
We’ve all smelled it. And like flatulence in church, nobody says anything.
It’s that odd perfume that comes from Great Grandma Eunice when you reach down to give her a hug.
It’s that odor that wafts through nursing homes.
And now science is here to prove to us what we’ve already known.
Older people have an odd odor that is all their own.
In fact, notes Johan Lundström, Ph.D., the lead author of the study, the smell of older people is a universal smell that can be identified from Asia to Alaska.
There’s even a word for this smell in Japan: kareishū.
Here’s the explanation for “the smell” from Dr. Lundström:
The root cause of the old person smell is still a mystery, but the study notes that long-term changes to the skin glands may be involved. Lundström suspects it also may be related to an accelerated rate of cell decay. “As cells die at a faster pace, they might give off a different odor that is unique to people with old age,” he says. (from CNN.com)
*****
As a funeral director, I know the small all too well as I frequent nursing homes more often that some of the occupant’s family. It’s a smell that has always elicited sadness in me. Sadness for those who sit in waiting, often unvisited by outsiders.
I’ve read before that babies have a certain smell that neurologically encourages attachment in adults. We can actually love our infants more just by smelling them.
So, what does the “old people smell” encourage? For me, it’s encouraged a sense of the holy … a sense of both respect and a degree of otherness. An otherness that’s been created by a recognition of life and death. An otherness that we can learn from.
Next time you smell the “old people smell”, maybe we should just sit and listen (not necessarily to their words) to the holy that’s apart of the end stage of life.
Five of the Strangest Things Left in Wills
Two words: skin drum.
