Do-It-Yourself After-Death Care

Here’s a look at another way of dealing with death on your own terms: the home funeral.

Alison and Doug carried Caroline upstairs to the bathtub, where they washed her skin and hair, dried her limp, 45-pound body with a towel and placed her head on a pillow on the bed in her old room. Alison slipped a white communion dress on Caroline, turned up the air-conditioning and put ice packs by her daughter’s sides. She put pink lipstick on the child’s paling lips, and covered up Caroline’s toes and fingers, which were turning blue at the nails, with the family quilt.

Caroline stayed in her bedroom for 36 hours for her final goodbyes. There was no traditional funeral home service, and no coroner or medical examiner was on hand. Caroline’s death was largely a home affair, with a short cemetery burial that followed.

via Home Funerals Grow As Americans Skip The Mortician For Do-It-Yourself After-Death Care.

Gone in a flash

Gone in a flash


The picture above captures what has long been one of my favorite activities: riding bikes with the kids to school. It was 24 degrees when this photo was taken, but it was still fun. As you can see, I’m normally left in the dust on these rides.

I had been feeling wistful about this wonderful daily routine and how it will soon be coming to an end. Hallie graduates to middle school this fall and for the first time in a long time our morning schedules will no longer align. Travis still has two years of biking to school to be done but this glorious age when they’re both biking to school together will forever end.

How is it that when I was a kid life seemed to stretch on forever? How could it have ever seemed like one lifetime would be all I’d ever need to do all the things I wanted to do? Why didn’t anyone warn me how quickly life slips through one’s fingers, careening away like these cackling young cyclists?

With the kids growing inches every few months, it’s hard to keep up with all that’s happening in my life. I don’t want to miss a moment. I want to hug these kids and never let them go. I want to never forget what it’s like now, having such a wonderful family.

The kids will grow up, make their own way, and live successful lives. No matter where time takes us, though, I will always savor this moment in our lives.

Providence

For anyone who still doesn’t believe in divine providence, an instance this afternoon might change your mind.

This afternoon I checked my phone and discovered I had missed a call. Playing back a message that consisted only of a name and number made me wonder who I had ticked off this time with my blog posts, tweets, or body odor. With a little trepidation, I dialed the number and awaited my fate.

An older man answered the phone. It was Mr. John Snipes, the man who received a free home renovation from Builders of Hope. I had visited him during his renovation and left him my card, telling him to call me if there was anything I could do for him. He kept my card all this time and decided to put my offer to the test.
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Social grouping and crime

On my sleepy walking of the dog early this morning, I thought about the adolescence article in my previous post and also about Reggie Gemeille. It made me wonder if I had found the answer to my question as to what makes good kids turn bad.

The theory I’m working with goes beyond the fact that kids drop out of high school. The adolescent article talks about how schools are like big boxes where people with little in common are thrown together. People naturally sort themselves into groups and cliques, teenagers especially. What happens if you don’t find your group or clique? What if you aren’t a jock, or a rich kid, or a brainy kid, or a druggie, or whatever? What if the only tribe you’re left to identify with is that of a gang? What if that’s your only source of self-respect?
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Why You Never Truly Leave High School

This is a long but fascinating look at how we spend our adolescent years has an unusually strong effect on whom we become.

“If you’re interested in making sure kids learn a lot in school, yes, intervening in early childhood is the time to do it,” says Laurence Steinberg, a developmental psychologist at Temple University and perhaps the country’s foremost researcher on adolescence. “But if you’re interested in how people become who they are, so much is going on in the adolescent years.”

via Why You Never Truly Leave High School — New York Magazine.

How Doctors Die

Here’s something to think about when putting your end-of-life affairs in order.

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

via Zócalo Public Square :: How Doctors Die.

Reggie Gemeille charged again with murder

Wedjunald “Reggie” Gemeille


Reggie Gemeille was charged again yesterday with first-degree murder, this time in Sunday’s death of Angel D. Irby, 29. From Raleigh Police’s Facebook page:

On Sunday, at approximately 10:15 a.m., Raleigh Police Department officers conducted a check-on-welfare at 201-20 Loft Lane. Upon arrival, the officers located a deceased female, Angel D. Irby, 29. Irby, who resided at the call address, was located inside the apartment.

A suspect, Wedjunald Gemeille (DOB 8/28/91), is in custody and has been charged with murder in connection with the death of Irby. Gemeille has been transported to the Wake County Jail.

The suspect and victim were known to one another, and the crime was not a random act.

The investigation is continuing.

Here’s Gemeille’s inmate record at Wake County jail.
Curiously, I can’t find any record of him being tried in the 2010 death. It would be nice to know how he once again slipped through the cracks, this time in the hands of the criminal justice system.

Looks like Gemeille was arrested on Nov 24th, 2012 [PDF] for assault inflicting serious injury (m), assault on a female, disorderly conduct, and reckless driving – wanton disregard. The address of the altercation was also 201 Loft Ln. I wonder if Irby was the victim in that case, too.

Bike lanes or parking places?

The family and I had a very active day yesterday, taking advantage of the balmy (if cloudy) 75 degree weather. First I met my brother for a run around Shelley Lake. After that, the family and I did some biking along the Crabtree Creek Greenway. After a quick lunch, we took some of the kids’ friends with us to Buffalo Road Aquatic Center for a swim. I call it a triathlon, though Kelly insists that it’s not.

There is a sewer line replacement project taking place along the greenway and, as a result, we had to detour onto Anderson Drive to get around the construction. Upon reaching Anderson Drive, I was dismayed to see there were no sidewalks but a bike lane instead. That would’ve been fine but there were a number of cars parked along the street, sending my family and me out into traffic to get around them.
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