…I go through with my mother in 2012.

My mother in-law was 80 years of age when her husband died.  My mother was 78 when her husband died.

In both cases, as in any longterm relationship between two people, the survivor learns new forms of daily decisionmaking.

My mother in-law depended on her now-deceased son and living daughter (my wife) to help her make decisions after their father died.

My mother depends on my sister and me to help her make decisions after our father died.

When my father in-law died, my wife was almost 35.

When my father died, I was 50.

In between: fifteen years of wisdom gathered through life experiences, some shared between us, some accumulated individually.

Fifteen years of social changes/progress, including new technology (think about how much the Internet has changed in 15 years), new businesses, failed businesses, climate change, fashion cycles, pop music tastes, entertainment choices, medical science advances, etc.

Are we more or less tolerant of Iranian atheists/humanists?  Liberal Quakers?  Non-heterosexual relationships?  Physical/mental challenges?  The unemployed?  Cute cat videos?

Is there room in your life for a late night TV talk show host with a robotic skeleton and cloth-horse costumed actor(s)?

Would there have been such a creature 15 years ago?  Could he have been a reformed Scottish alcoholic comedian?  Do such creatures exist in real life today?

I learned a new phrase today: conformity to tomorrow (from book, “Without Apology: The Heroes, the Heritage, and the Hope of Liberal Quakerism” by Chuck Fager [which I read, quickly, in the book section of Unclaimed Baggage Center]):

“Conformity to tomorrow: …consists in a moderate opposition to the existing political power, together with the espousal of the ideas and doctrines of the most sensitive, the most visionary, the most appealing trend in society. This is a trend which, from the sociological point of view, is already dominant, and is the one which should normally be expected to win out….In this way, the political stand has the appearance of being independent, whereas in reality it is the expression of an avant-garde conformism.” (Jacques Ellul, a French Reformed theologian and sociologist, 1972A, p. 123.)

I would toss musical acts like Rage Against The Machine, political groups like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, and economic movements like the EU handling of the PIIGS into the realm of avant-garde conformism, as well as most official social protest groups not included in terrorist lists for “wanted: dead or alive” drone attacks.

We always have to have enemies toward whom we formally direct our confusion/fear-based hatred.

But, as usual, I digress.

Earlier today, at a roadside restaurant called Carlile’s in Scottsboro, Alabama, a town where a plentiful plethora of people met for camaraderie and shopping bargains, my wife and I held a wonderful discussion with Autumn, mother of three boys aged 7, 6 and 2, the first taking the role of the responsible eldest (“Mom told you not to do that”), the second a quiet child who puts up with the physical shenanigans of his two brothers, and the youngest, the rowdiest one of the bunch.

Autumn, raised by her grandparents, lost them both nine months apart five years ago.  The emptiness inside is slowly, very slowly, wrapped up in new friendships and new experiences we call the passage of time.

When she wants to turn to her grandparents for guidance, they are not there and she feels an instant pang of pain.

Although she has a beautiful tattoo of a heart on her arm where every one of her three boys first rested and for whom she tattooed their names, she would never tattoo the names of her grandparents or the name of her husband on her body because the reminder of their losses, in plain ink visible under skin, would be too much to bear (beauty is not the only thing that’s skin-deep).

She, like all parents, believes deep down that her kids will outlive her, their futures bright.

To those who’ve lost their children to congenital conditions, I give you my sympathy.  No one wants to survive the death of offspring with a promising future.

My wife outlived her parents and her only sibling.

I have outlived my father but not my mother and my only sibling.

As this storyline grows more complicated, my life and the lives of my family members are intricately intertwined.

Not a loss, not a gain nor a zero-sum game is life.

The sets of states of energy are constantly in flux.

Every waking moment is an opportunity to learn.

Is new technology an enabler of your relatively expensive entertainment addictions or an avenue of opportunity for increased wealth?  Does it increase the credit or debit side of your account ledger?  In other words, do you go into debt to play games and watch videos?

These and other questions lead us to thought trails about the costs and benefits of a globally-connected economy, where plenty of leisure is available to the masses.

If this laptop computer and these blog entries are using up CPU cycles for the sole purpose of entertaining myself, is that okay?

What about the urgency to act, the desire to change our society significantly so that spare CPU cycles are used to ensure survival of Earth-based lifeforms here and elsewhere as long as potential energy states are available to support them in this part of the universe?

Does it matter if the majority of our species believes in self-centered activities?

What are a few decades compared to 1000 years?

What is 1000 years compared to 200 million?

Can we really know the future, no matter how much we bunch together to conform to one vision knowingly, unknowingly, voluntarily and/or coercively?

All for the sake of family, whatever that means to you/me/us?