Tracey Schmidt’s poetic reading of a Blessing for Our Death reminds us of the complexities of life – how we can be gatekeepers and entrance points, light filled and vulnerable, lonely and loved, all at the same time. She praises life and exhorts us to do the same, to “sing as if tomorrow will not come because one day it will not.” This singing of life’s praises enables us to live fully, “as if home were everywhere and you are no longer a guest but a loved and welcome member.”

L   I   V   E
L         I          V          E
W   E   L   L

“I asked an elderly man once what it was like to be old and to know the majority of his life was behind him. He told me that he has been the same age his entire life. He said the voice inside of his head had never aged. He has always just been the same boy. His mother’s son. He had always wondered when he would grow up and be an old man. He said he watched his body age and his faculties dull but the person he is inside never got tired. Never aged. Never changed.
Our spirits are eternal. Our souls are forever. The next time you encounter an elderly person, look at them and know they are still a child, just as you are still a child and children will always need love, attention and purpose.”

~ Author unknown & Photography by Rita French
A CALENDAR 
WILL NEVER MAKE YOU OLDER
only your
FRAMED IN MIND
can do that.            .            .
One of the greatest things
hospice has taught me
c o n t i n u o u s l y
since I began
waaaaaaay back a few calendar pages ago in
1994
is out of all the things
L I F E
can take from you
as it
e x t r a c t s
from you
EVEN ON A DEATH BED
my love
and my ability to kindly share it
(especially to share IT)
T H I S
is what it means
not to get older
but become more
much more than an
AGE(LESS)
So I’m just not looking forward to having a few more
Birthday Candles lit
but blowing a few more
o    u    t.     .     .

T          H          I          S
quote by Mr Palahniuk,
Author of the FIGHT CLUB
isn’t the nicest or classiest way
to open up
A Caring Catalyst
Monday Morning Blog
about growing older
which some equate to
d e c a y i n g
d y i n g.            .            .

It’s like choosing:
YOU LOOK LIKE THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING
or
THE LAST DAY OF WINTER
and sometimes
we’re not doing the choosing.          .          .
So kick back
breathe deep
and exhale loudly
as you
W               A                T               C                 H
(I think you’ll agree, not just in this blog…but often THE ENDING is better than
THE BEGINNING)

No matter what religion or spiritual path you follow (or don’t), there’s one topic that fascinates us all:What happens after we die?

Reincarnation? Eternal Heaven? Total blackness and non-existence? Something totally different?

No matter what we believe though, there’s a few basic facts about death that we all know to be true.

The first fact of death is the obvious:
We’ve all been born with a sexually transmitted disease
called: LIFE
and none of us gets out of here
A  L  I  V  E

YES.   .   . we are all going to die. Yes, every single person on this planet is going to die someday, somehow, somewhere.

The second fact is less obvious:

After we die, our lives will be etched in the hearts of others. We live eternally. Forever. In other people.

That’s what today’s video is really about.

It’s about the relationships we forge during our lives that are so powerful they impact people even after we die.

Today’s movie is called “The Funeral.” It starts with a little bit of humor, and it quickly goes deep and gets to the heart of the matter.  .  .a heart that beats like no other when filled with a love that death can’t begin to part let alone forget.     .     .

SO HERE’S THE DEAL:

THE DEEPER YOU LOVE
THE DARKER YOU HURT
so.          .          .
LOVE DEEPER, STILL
LOVE DEEPER, MORE
L                   O                  V                  E     

Do you see the beauty in life, or do you just exist? Be careful to just exist – that’s dangerous’. – Elrieda Pillmann

IS   IT   WORTH   IT.          .           .

Sometimes, at a Celebration of Life Service, I will ask THAT QUESTION.  Is it worth it?  I pose the scene that if we had a magical door to go through, and all we had to do to make sure that the hurt would stop; that there would be no grief or hard grieving; no tears; no sense of loss or hurt and all we had to do was walk through the MAGICAL DOOR, of course, with one small caveat, it would simply mean that you would have ever known, ever loved the one you are grieving, the one who gave you this special gift of GRIEF that’ll last the rest of your life.  Would you?  Would you walk through that MAGICAL DOOR.          .            .           ?

I don’t believe the title of this beautiful little film.  It’s not ALL IN THE MIND, it’s in the HEART and there’s no piece of earth, no cemetery plot that can ever hold what your heart always will and never won’t.

Don’t open up the cage of your grief.          .          .
TAKE THE DOOR OFF
and never let it be latched again.          .        .
anything else
just might be the worst kind of
e        x        i        s        t        i        n        g
.     .     .the least kind of living

He’s one of the few people in the World
where his picture says his name
and his name brings his
L I K E N E S S
to mind
WHO IS
ALEX TREBEK
When he died this past Sunday
the accolades began pouring in
from all of the major news sources
and so many
fans
friends
former contestants. . .
Alex Trebek, whose 36-year run as the host of Jeopardy!cemented him as a legend among television hosts, died on Nov. 8, 2020 at the age of 80—more than a year after he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

“Jeopardy! is saddened to share that Alex Trebek passed away peacefully at home early this morning, surrounded by family and friends,” per a statement from the show. “Thank you, Alex.”

Alex, who hosted the famed quiz show since its revival in 1984, announced in March 2019 that he’d received the diagnosis in a video to fans, and acknowledged the low survival rates of the disease. The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is 10%, according to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

One year after revealing his diagnosis, Trebek shared an update on his health in another video to fans posted in March 2020.

“The one-year survival rate for Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is 18%,” he said. “I’m very happy to report I’ve just reached that marker.” 

Trebek’s update came after he said in September 2019 that he was undergoing chemotherapy again after a setback in his recovery. Fighting cancer for a full year took a toll, Trebek said, and put on him a physical and mental burden.

“There were some good days, but a lot of not-so-good days. I joked with friends that the cancer won’t kill me, the chemo treatments will,” he said. Giving up, however, would have been a “betrayal” of his wife, other cancer patients and Trebek’s faith in God, he said.

A staple of American TV, the husband and father of two children was known to legions of fans who tuned in each day to watch him stoically give clues to Jeopardy! contestants vying for their shot.

Born in Sudbury, Ontario, in 1940, Trebek attended the University of Ottawa and graduated with a degree in philosophy in 1961. He had an early interest in television, and worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) while still in college. His hosting career took off in the early 1960s with the CBC, where Trebek served as both newscaster and sportscaster. By 1973, having exhausted most of the opportunities available in Canada, Trebek arrived in the U.S. to host the game show The Wizard of Odds—an opportunity he long credited to the actor Alan Thicke, who tapped Trebek for the spot.Double Dare host Alex Trebek, in 1976. 

About 10 years after that, Trebek’s chance to be a true TV personality came up: Jeopardy!. The show, which had its own tricky history, came back in 1984 with Trebek as its host after previous iterations of the game show had been cancelled twice before. 

These days, Jeopardy! is appointment viewing. But Trebek, in his early days on the show, had to convince viewers to watch. Jeopardy!faced “absurd” time slots, CNN reported on the show’s 50th anniversary, and some local stations pulled the show altogether. Producers at one point pressured Trebek to dumb down the questions to make the game easier on contestants. It took significant fine-tuning for Trebek to make the show into his own. Jeopardy host Alex Trebek in 1984. 

As Jeopardy! host, Trebek became more than a man who read out questions and offered, in his patient tone, the correct answers when none of the contestants could get to them on time. Jeopardy! became a cultural phenomenon, and Trebek with it—showing up on hit shows from The Simpsons to Seinfeld. And Will Ferrell playing a mustachioed Trebek battling with Darrell Hammond’s Sean Connery has been etched in the memory of Saturday Night Live fans. Jeopardy!itself made its own news: In 2019, the contestant James Holzhauer won $2.4 million, and falling just short of the previous record holder, Ken Jennings, who shot to fame when he won 74 games in a row and earned more than $2.5 million, in 2004.

Of being the host of Jeopardy!, Trebek told New York magazine in 2018 that he approached the role by stepping out of the spotlight. 

“You have to set your ego aside,” he said. “The stars of the show are the contestants and the game itself. That’s why I’ve always insisted that I be introduced as the host and not the star.” 

Trebek exemplified the qualities that make for a solid Jeopardy! host with a wry sense of humor and a tone of voice that shifted ever-so-slightly to signal to contestants his disappointment or when they bungled an answer or joy, when they got something right. This was on purpose, he said. 

 In the year before his death, Trebek appeared to be at peace with his fate. “I’m not afraid of dying,” he told CTV News in October 2019. “I’ve lived a good life, a full life, and I’m nearing the end of that life…if it happens, why should I be afraid of that?”Alex went on to say, “I realize that there is an end in sight for me, just as there is for everyone else…when I do pass on, one thing they will not say at my funeral is, ‘Oh, he was taken from us too soon.’” 

QUITE A FINAL JEOPARDY,
h u h. . . ?

T H I S
I was on my walk
THAT SUNDAY AFTERNOON
when I got this news. . .
I literally stopped in mid step
in the middle of
T H I S
and when I looked up
I saw Nature’s Confetti
the sky was full of
swirling
gently
FALLING
l e a v e s

which brought me to
T H I S
The Blue backdrop sky
Drops Back
confettied leaves
that float ever so delicately
as they whisper
without rushed wind
I AM STILL HERE
I AM STILL
I AM
I
until they collect painlessly
with a colorful desegregated congregation
on the gracious
ever accepting
comforting padded
earth

to be held
not so much
for an ever
as but for a mere Season
that’ll have them all
r e s u r r e c t e d
into a Spring
back onto a naked limb
that sprouts them
to begin anew
all over
for an endless
again. . .

FINAL JEOPARDY
We’ve been born
with a sexually transmitted disease
that’s terminal
L I F E
which has the overly simple Math of
1 out of 1 of us
dying
(to live)
. . .so that those who love us
can be grateful they invested
THAT LOVE
for the tears
for the grief
for the sadness
for the sense of loss
which the
THAT LOVE
made possible
and has us ultimately uttering
THANK YOU
and not
good-bye

The truest of all truths
and of all data based evidence
is what we know
is what we know that we know
is what we bet our lives that we know
but spend every heart beat trying to
D I S P R O V E:
ONE
OUT OF
ONE
OF US
DIES
. . .even those we know
who seem to defy it
are teflon proof
EXEMPT
just because of
WHO THEY ARE. . ,
SCOOTER IS ONE OF THEM
(until he wasn’t)

Mark “Scooter” Bakaitis

October 29, 1950 – June 10, 2020

Born October 29, 1950 to Rita Washinski Bakaitis and Albert Bakaitis in Washington, Pa. Graduated from Washington High School in 1968 and briefly attended Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia then attended several Electrical Technical Schools and Specialized Training. He was employed by Washington Stainless Steel Corp. from 1973-2000 as a Master Electrician.

In 1975 he married the love of his life, Elizabeth “Becky” Krager and in 1979 a son, Eric David was born to them. Eric precedes him in death.

During his life in Pennsylvania, Scooter enjoyed many varied hobbies and interests. He was an avid bow hunter and fisherman, loved all outdoor activities such as boating and camping with his family and friends, coached little league baseball and basketball with his son.

Throughout his lifetime Scooter enjoyed weight training and the social life that comes in a gym setting. His passionate daily project was a free “Internet Joke Service” that he started after the death of his son to try and “brighten the world”. His wife Becky and he also organized a group called “Friends Helping Friends” at this time. In 1999 he organized the “Guyz Lunch” meeting for every Tuesday of the year which continues today.

Upon moving permanently to Florida in 2004 he renewed his enjoyment of motorcycles, started raising orchids and plants, also his musical interests which included “The Blues” and playing the guitar and model railroading.

He was also very active in his community, four years as ARC chair for his community and for many years as he would say “As a Professional House Bitch” for his snow bird neighbors when they went north for the summer.

He would say, “I don’t go to church, but Me and God are tight”. His church was the canal in his backyard or the ocean/beach, where he would go to “Chat with God”.

Scooter is survived by his beloved wife Becky and their “adopted children/adults” Nicholas and Lindsay O’Brien, Justin and Rachel Sienkiel and Erik Larson and wife Santella, as well as his brothers Al (Jeanne) and Brian and nephew Nathaniel. 

I used to think
A FRIEND IS SOMEONE WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU,
AND STILL LIKES YOU. . .
I kind of believe now
that a Friend like Scooter
is someone who can do you for
and for those you love
what you have no power
within you to do;
He did for me and my family
(and countless others)
what could have never been done
without him:
MAKING HIS HOME IN FLORIDA OUR VACATION FOR THE PRIME YEARS OF OUR CHILDREN’S LIVES
HE GAVE EXPERIENCES
HE GAVE ENDLESSLY OF HIMSELF
HE TOOK HIS PERSONAL PAIN
AND MADE IT OTHER’S
SUPREME PLEASURE
He was Hulk Hogan
more than Hulk Hogan was himself
THIS IS SCOOTER. . .
Some people are
CHURCH PEOPLE
and a select few
(very few)
ARE THE CHURCH
. . .there wasn’t a person Scooter ever met
who wasn’t a part of his Congregation
. . .his pulpit was muted
because his
ACTIONS
did all of the speaking;
Scooter never came into a situation
that he didn’t leave better
and he had a way of taking
YOUR LADDER
and adding rungs
always so you could climb higher
always higher
than you ever thought you could rise. . ,

The grains of sand in our lives gets emptied out
much faster than any of us would like
and what’s left isn’t discarded sand. . .
It’s not even just memories
SO MUCH AS
as the
E X P E R I E N C E S
that live on within us;
AND BECAUSE WE CAN SHARE
WHAT’S FIRST BEEN SHARED,
now have the potential to live on in
OTHERS. . .
and after all that’s said or done
WE
become what that data-based evidence can’t begin to show:
I M M O R T A L
. . .try taking the Sand out of
That Glass

She brought a lottery ticket every Tuesday
and never won—
SHE DIED

He always bought used cars that he ended up
spending twice as much money to fix—
HE DIED

She went to psychics regularly—
SHE DIED

He prayed irregularly—
HE DIED

She shopped at Thrift stores for Everything—
SHE DIED

He quit golf because it got too expensive—
HE DIED

She never ate a meal out—
SHE DIED

He quit smoking/drinking and maintained a KETO Diet—
HE DIED

She read books and didn’t own a TV—
SHE DIED

He always got front row theater ticks—
HE DIED

She owned 6 cats and 2 dogs—
SHE DIED

He went to Church every Sunday and tithed 10%—
HE DIED

She never went to the Doctor—
SHE DIED

He didn’t own a toothbrush or floss—
HE DIED

He was a Doctor
She was a Teacher
He was a Nurse
She was a Lawyer
He was an Actor
She was a Police Officer
He as a Priest
She was an Actuary
He as Homeless
She was a Musician

They danced with Death
The SONG went on
but Their Music stopped
Death laughingly danced on
never out of breath
never losing a step
missing a beat
THEY DIED
Death Didn’t
It passes on
without passing away

Death never hides from us
It doesn’t play
PEEK-A-BOO
around unsuspecting corners
or unseen darkened tunnels
The bell it tolls at Midnight
is the same one resounding at Noon

It’s in Us
Like a constant untiring Heartbeat
Closer than our next breath
It surges through our veins
and Wins
ever before our Board game begins
and long before we get out of jail
and collect a conciliatory $200.00
Death smirks
Even as we before we put our
worn out pieces
begrudgingly in The Box

Death sneers the Smile
of an Undefeated Record

Death pitches a NO-Hitter
and when the fast ball
hits you in the head
you lay lifeless at the Plate
Before you can take your Base
. . .no Strike Three
ever necessary and seldom given

And yet
with our many beginnings
with our multiple endings
we are grateful
within us
there are some things that never conclude
THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT NEVER CONCLUDE

(and this. . .this is why we live)

Kind of makes you wonder, huh.          .          .

D                    E                    A                    T                     H

Billy Collins has long been one of my favorite contemporary poets and he ponders

D             E            A              T             H

this way in his poem entitled,

M  Y        N  U  M  B  E  R

Is Death miles away from this house,
reaching for a window in Cinncinati
or breathing down the neck of a lost hiker
in British Columbia?

Is he too busy making arrangements,
tampering with air brakes,
scattering cancer cells like seeds,
loosening the wooden beams of roller coasters

to bother with my hidden cottage
that visitors find so hard to find?

Or is he stepping from a black car
parked at the dark end of the lane,
shaking open the familiar cloak,
its hood raised like the head of a crow,
and removing the scythe from the trunk?

Did you have any trouble with the directions?
I will ask, as I start talking my way out of this.

– Billy Collins

I remember at a very young age welcoming  d e a t h;  walking with it; talking to it; trying to understand what it all meant. I don’t know if I’ve ever come to heads or tails of that but I know doing some 26 funerals a month for the past 10 years has brought me closer to it than I’ve ever had in my entire life. The Buddhist tell us that attachment is the form of all suffering and detachment helps us not suffer as much.  I, like Many, am a poor Buddhist.           .          .

I remember as a five or six year old kid, sitting in the backseat one Friday night as we were making our way to my grandparents, which was more of a weekly event than not.          .          .I told my parents matter of factly that I hope I would die before them because I would be too sad if they died first; there was a palpable silence I can remember and that nervous look between parents that wasn’t all that secret before they both, in machine gun like fashion began sputtering off all kinds of reasons why that’s “not the way it’s suppose to be.”

There was the death of my grandfather when I was six and then the death of my other grandfather right before my 14th birthday that I believed I was directly responsible and then aunts, uncles, great grandmother and grandmothers and friends in high-school.       .       .

In a strange way I have learned to not just open the door to death but actually unhinge it. And by just  unhinging it,  it’s let it come and go in places in my life like a undamable flood waters that seep in spots you didn’t even know exists and before it drys all of the way it leaves an unmistakable odor that never quiet evaporates or gets tamed.          .          .

I’ve long ago filled out my own DNRCC and written letters to be read ‘at that appropriate time.       .       .I’ve taped parts of my own Celebration of Life so I can have the “LAST WORD” and intend to attend it if I get a glimpse or a longer than usual ‘heads-up’ that it’s looming before me in my most immediate future;

I’ve even gone further as to actually imagine trying to envision what it would be like to not only lose my parents today, this year, but also losing my sister and brothers to the SHADOW  that knows no Light.        .        .

And yes, I’ve dared hugging the Porcupine-full-barbed-quails-exposed and plunging deep, what it would be like to have Erin, my wife die or any one of my four daughters, my son, my five granddaughters or my
grandson.        .        .

O                                   U                                   C                                   H

That seems to go little bit further than what we would call
mindfulness.        .       .

It’s way less than mindlessness, too.            .            .

Try it go ahead and finish these two sentences:

BEFORE  I  DIE  I  WOULD  LIKE  TO_________________________________

THIS IS WHAT IT WOULD FEEL LIKE IF ONE OF MY LOVED ONE DIED______________

Write out your own Obituary.          .          .

G   O       T   H   E   R   E

TASTE IT

SNIFF IT

HEAR IT

SEE IT

TOUCH IT

Recall the Laughters.          .          .all of them

It certainly doesn’t matter if a Tree gets hit by lightning and no longer can bear fruit or sprout leaves compared to if my wife or my children, grandchildren or even my dog Molly died; and it’s even much different then if somebody that is the same age as my wife or my child or my parents die.          .          .this mindfulness, this acceptance of death; this detachment, is it somehow making me live better; making me love deeper; making me feel and experience more freshly and more deeply?

 I’m not sure, but I do know that it’s not any L E S S. And by taking this door and unhinging it, it allows these thoughts, these feelings to sort of come and go without stopping them or judging them or disallowing them. And it is in that very act that it disarms them; Renders them less potent; Makes them,  DARE I SAY, more
n  e  i  g  h  b  o  r  l  y.     .     .     ?

It seems, these things are the very seeds once planted we don’t fully ever get to see the plants but know that they grow just the same,  and that we are not just tenders of those plants, but also harvesters. It’s growing season always and in ALL PLACES because it never is not THAT season among the Seasons.          .          .

So exactly what is the Takeaway?

Simply that it is not the same for each person or any person in your way of dealing with anything good and bad; Life or Death is not exactly a RIGHT or WRONG WAY so much as YOUR WAY and most likely it’ll be different than Another’s WAY or Experience.          .          .

SO  EACTLY  WHAT  IS  THE  TAKEAWAY?

Teach me your way; let me learn of it and don’t judge me too harshly if I don’t follow it to every detail but take from it lessons that I need to learn at the very moment that I need to learn even again, and let that be enough for the both of us.          .          .

After all what makes us Caring Catalysts.           .          .

What makes us Anything

What makes us Everything

is not the fear we are nothing.          .          .

It’s the Fear that we

WE CEASE TO BE

CARING CATALYSTS
ANYTHING
EVERYTHING
ANYONE’S
EVERYONE’S.          .          .

Excuse me now.          .          .
it’s time to do a little dying
and place my head on the pillow;
close my eyes and be asleep
before the next song on my playlist comes up.           .          .
And even as I die in this way,

A           G           A           I           N
(as we each do every night with even a not-so-good-sleep)

I am confident that I will RESURRECT

either to a new day

or to the One that is never ending.           .          .

For there indeed is a TIME

tick-ticking away.       .       .

a time for both

and yes.          .          .

indeed a time for all

Sometimes reaching out

and just holding hands

is a connection that your

H E A R T

will require that you do often.          .          .

In fact,

YOUR     HEART

won’t   be   the   same

E                 V                 E                 R

unless   it’s   connected

hand   to   hand

I saw her in the hallway when I walked into the facility

and she was talking on the phone

but it looked like she was talking to herself.           .           .

Moments later I saw her at the vending machine

OFF  OF  THE  PHONE.          .          .

she was buying a bag of salted nuts

and was wheeling around her own oxygen tank

and it was a simple question I asked:

“How   are   you?”

with a most significant answer:

“YOU    CAN’T    BEAT    A    MOUNTAIN!”

Talk about your

B                            A                            M

of   the   Day

When people have asked me

since 1994

“HOW  CAN  YOU  DO  THIS  WORK  OF  HOSPICE with all of the Death and Dying?”

My stock answer is anything but

I N    S T O C K:

“Everyday I don’t so much serve the dying as much as I companion the Living,”

.       .       .the MOUNTAIN-CONQUERING-STORM-WALKING-FIRE-EATING-SUNSHINE-SHINING-BRIGHTER-RAYS-EVER-PRODUCING-LIVING

The  Truth:

I’m still one of the most selfish people I’ve ever known

and I’m not ashamed to admit that by being a

Caring Catalyst

and showing up everyday

if to do nothing more than just

J O I N I N G     H A N D S

I become more completed

than any box of jumbled puzzle pieces

could ever become

and I’m always in search of the next hand.        .        .

the not-so-much-missing-piece

but the not-yet-found-one.          .           .

Because you just can’t

BEAT      A       MOUNTAIN

In fact.        .        .

Compassion adds to its Peak

HAND    AND    HAND

D i s c o v e r

and   ever

R           E           D           I           S           C           O           V           E           R

Let’s    go    Climbing

and let’s have our seemingly

L   A   S   T         S   T   E   P

be  really   just   another   one   of   our

F   I   R   S   T   S

in the many

of    more   to   come

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