Mark Knows It All

If you are looking for warm and fuzzy…you ain’t gonna find it here. Keep–a-goin’. This is about a phenomenon that is becoming less and less unusual…longevity. I don’t have any statistics, but anecdotally it appears to me that folks are living longer and longer. And that is causing some real problem on all sorts of different levels be it Social Security, Medicaid, long term care. The list goes on and on. My wife and I have had that kind of longevity in both of our families. My mother died three years ago this January at the age of 89. I have an uncle and aunt who are pushing 100. My wife’s mother lived to be 84 and died this past September. The usual response is “isn’t that wonderful he/she/they led such a long life!” Well…maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. If the family is functional long life is a good thing. If it is dysfunctional, that is another story. Both of our mothers were difficult people, and I mean that in the worst possible way. While on the surface things seemed al