There's a little fruitcake in all of us
Warren County announces cuts to senior programs after losing federal funds
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It should have been the worst of times.
It was a year ago Gillian was told nothing more could be done.
Looking back, I wonder if it was a relief. She had a sore hip, a knee that needed replaced and for the previous month she could not hold down food or drink. You know, until just now I had forgotten that part. I had just put it out of my mind.
That was the worst because Gillian loved a good meal.
Joseph, our only son, our traveling compadre, our realization that maybe our time on this Earth had produced something good, decided to see his mother one last time in July.
To say goodbye, if such a thing is possible when it comes to people who are so close.
Joseph told me Isabel wanted to come with him.
Let me back up, because these "millennial" kids are different from the way we grew up and experienced life. Joseph met Isabel, another history nerd, at work at the National World War II Museum.
Joseph and Isabel's first date - as told to us by Joseph - was part get-to-know-you and part partner interview. That part was initiated by Isabel. For two people in their late 20s, it was pragmatic. Why waste time on a relationship if there were minefields up ahead?
Isabel wanted to know how Joseph felt about children?
Fine, as long as they were other people's children. Yes, I'm putting words in Joseph's mouth, but I believe that was the gist of his answer.
Isabel, who is Catholic, wanted to know how Joseph felt about religion?
Uh, oh! This could be a deal-breaker.
Joseph explained his reservations, maybe his objections, and when he was done Isabel asked if he would at least attend mass with her.
To our amazement, he agreed.
The date, as much negotiation as romantic interlude (from what we were told), was Gone-with-the-Wind long. Well, Isabel was from Atlanta.
Fast-forward a year or so to August 2023. Joseph and I concocted a plan to surprise his mother for her 65th birthday with the greatest gift of all - a visit from Joseph and Isabel - to sip wine in the Finger Lakes.
We spent the weekend together getting to know each other, may be trying to show Isabel what she was getting herself into.
One night Isabel told us the story of the calamity that became her sister's wedding. It included tales of a Taylor Swift motorcade that delayed the guests arrival for more than an hour, Isabel's father driving madly down various Atlanta backroads with Joseph in the car to give his daughter away and Isabel ripping her dress and sitting half-naked in a storefront while an elderly couple tried to sew it all back together.
This was "Bridesmaids" Atlanta-style.
That weekend in the Finger Lakes is where we first fell in love with Isabel. She obviously had Joseph at "Will you go with me to mass?"
It was the last birthday Gillian celebrated.
So when Isabel said she wanted to come with Joseph last July, it did not surprise me, but I wondered if it was a good idea.
I told Joseph we loved Isabel, and she was more than welcome, but this was going to be a difficult time for us all. Wasn't this going to put Isabel in a difficult position?
Even the best of us struggle with death, with what to say and how to say goodbye. Joseph and I certainly did not know what we were doing.
I wanted to give Isabel an out. Isabel decided to come anyway.
When Isabel arrived, she came into the bedroom and jumped into bed with Gillian to watch television. We all spent the rest of the day in the bedroom talking and watching shows. It was like we had known Isabel our whole lives.
For the next week, we spent most of our time in the bedroom watching our favorite movies, but we joked when Isabel was out of the room that this was her test. If she liked Casablanca, or our off-kilter sense of humor in movies like Arthur, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, well, she had our approval.
She laughed in all the right places and easily won our approval.
As Joseph prepared to leave for the airport, he laid down in bed with his mother and they talked. I only heard bits and pieces of the conversation, but she told him she knew he would marry Isabel and he should not worry because she would be there in spirit. I heard her make him promise to play Jimmy Buffet's song "Fruitcakes" at the reception. It wasn't unusual for me to find the two of them dancing in the kitchen while bellowing the words, "There's a little bit of fruitcake left in every one of us."
It was heartbreaking to hear, but also an acknowledgement that her son had a life to lead, too, a future to pursue that his parents would not be part of.
Gillian knew it was time for her to let go, even if the rest of us were so ill-prepared.
A few months ago, Joseph asked me to bring some family heirlooms - the engagement rings and wedding bands of family members past - to New Orleans. He wanted to incorporate the past and the future in an engagement ring for Isabel.
Earlier this month, he told me the ring was ready and he was planning on proposing.
He chose the day after I headed home.
That seemed appropriate. He didn't need me for this.
He told me he hired a photographer to capture the moment. He showed me the champagne flutes engraved with their names and date of engagement.
I was impressed.
"I had no idea you were such a romantic," I told him.
"Neither did I," he said. "I think mom has been looking over my shoulder."
I can relate.
I've sensed that from time to time myself.
My first column about Joseph came eight months after he was born in 1996. For those of you have read those stories in the newspaper, Joseph was a frequent subject, something any parent could relate to - our children growing up.
More than once, I sat writing late into the night with tears rolling down my cheeks about what this lad has meant to me and his mother. Confession time, it is happening again right now.
I suppose this is a warning shot to a future daughter-in-law that being a subject in a future column is always a possibility unless I'm instructed something is "off the record."
Late Saturday morning, Joseph took Isabel for a walk in beautiful Audubon Park in New Orleans where he had hired a photographer to lay in wait near the gazebo.
He dropped to one knee and proposed.
So it was on Saturday afternoon as my brother drove somewhere south of Atlanta, that three photos were texted to me.
They looked so happy.
And it was a good thing I wasn't driving. The tears of happiness surely would have blurred my vision.
But then there was sadness because I knew how much Gillian would have loved this moment, so happy that he had found someone like Isabel to share his life with, and yes, another "fruitcake" for our family.
If she hasn't learned already, Isabel will soon learn, there is especially "a little bit of fruitcake in every one of us."
Warren County cuts
The Post-Star laid out some specifics about what the Department of Health and Human Series - Bobby Kennedy's outfit if you didn't know - has decided to cut in the 2026 budget.
The newspaper chronicled a long list of senior programs that helps senior citizens in all aspects of their lives.
There were so many local programs being cut that reporter Luke Mosseau was reduced to just showing a long list:
The following programs will be eliminated under the proposed 2026 federal budget: Preventive Health Services, Elder Falls Prevention, Lifespan Respite Care, Long-Term Care Ombudsman Chronic Disease Self-Management, Elder Rights Support Activities, Elder Justice/Adult Protective Services, Aging and Disability Resource Centers, State Health Insurance Assistance, Voting Access for People with Disabilities, as well as Paralysis and Limb Loss Resource Centers.
To get a better sense of what senior citizens are losing, you need to read The Post-Star story.
Big beautiful nightmare
On reader told me how he stayed up all night watching the congressional debate over Trump's "big beautiful bill" that will leave thousands of working-class people far worse off.
I was impressed with his dedication to citizenship in this difficult time.
I wanted to share some of what Tim Burton wrote me afterward about his concerns now that the bill passed the House.
My son is a teacher. We have a granddaughter. So many friends now deeper in harms way because of this blatant disregard for common sense and representation from (and this sickens me) elected politicians," Burton wrote. "We need the Senate to oppose this bill entirely, or at least have this left alone and make the fee for a gun silencer $1,000. It's 2025 after all. Note also, that of the 300 or so amendments presented, not a SINGLE ONE (proposed by Democrats) was voted yes by Republicans. Trust me when I say there were many that should have been. The whole process was sickening. People need to read the highlights of this bill that triggers an automatic $500 BILLION cut to MEDICARE next year."
Attacks on opinion
The reason for The Front Page is that most media outlets are running away from commentary, editorials, opinion, and sometimes even analysis because it will hurt their business.
The Washington Post owner sent a chilling message back in February that the subjects it addresses willo be limited to "personal liberties and free markets." It's editor immediately resigned.
While announcing its latest buyout package for employees, the Post made a specific pitch to Opinion section staffers to either get on board or get out.
The actual message was that it was "an opportunity to colleagues who may want to pursue alternatives."
The Post is still looking for a new opinion page editor.
Inside the Beltway
If you wondered what its been like for career government employees the past five months, Jill Weinberger, a senior producer of New York Times audio, gave some insights in a guest essay Wednesday.
"Our country has always run on the quiet competence of people committed to their work, whether they’re keeping credit card companies from ripping us off or making sure our airplanes land safely," Weinberger wrote. "My distress over President Trump’s blind attacks on the so-called bureaucrats isn’t just about my friends’ losing their jobs. It’s about our entire country losing faith in the importance of expertise that’s wielded in service of the greater good.
"Even if only for purely self-interested reasons, we should be celebrating Americans who serve the public," Weinberger continued. "If you find the American health care system maddening now, imagine what it will be like in the next decade, when the country is expected to confront a severe shortage of physicians and nurses. Picture how infuriating the federal bureaucracy will feel when there is no one to help you navigate it. Think about the cures that will remain a mystery because of the Trump administration’s extensive cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation."
The points are valid and while there is always room for efficiency, mot of us wouldn't tear down our homes if we got termites and that seems like what is happening here.
"Part of what I’ve loved most about my D.C. social circle is that my kids have been surrounded by adults I want them to emulate — the doctors and nurses who care for us in our worst moments, the lawyers who stand up for equal rights and the rule of law, the scientists and public health workers who are trying to slow global warming or prevent the next pandemic," Weinberger writes. "These are the parents who, for now, fill the folding chairs at my kids’ school assemblies and the houses on my block. I am scared of what my community will look like when the dust settles. And I’m afraid for the world that my children will inherit if my friends in D.C. ... reconsider their futures and are dissuaded from serving the public good."
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
Life goes on. For better or worse is up to us. Glad to see you and yours choosing better. L’chaim!
Meditations Before Kaddish
WHEN I DIE give what's left of me away to children and old men that wait to die.
And if you need to cry, cry for your brother walking the street beside you.
And when you need me, put your arms around anyone and give them what you need to give me.
I want to leave you something, something better than words or sounds.
Look for me in the people I've known or loved, and if you cannot give me away,
at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind.
You can love me best by letting hands touch hands, and by letting go of children that need to be free.
Love doesn't die, people do.
So, when all that's left of me is love, give me away.
" It’s about our entire country losing faith in the importance of expertise that’s wielded in service of the greater good." Unfortunately this is not a side effect but the strategy of the right wing. How often we hear things like "that's what they want you to believe" or "you actually believe the government" or "I've done my on research" that amounts to reading propaganda on the internet. How or why else would anyone deny climate change, vaccines, the 2020 election, acid rain, and a whole host of damages that have been prevented by "the doctors and nurses who care for us in our worst moments, the lawyers who stand up for equal rights and the rule of law, the scientists and public health workers who are trying to slow global warming or prevent the next pandemic,".