Dear Unde Mike,
About three and a half years ago my grandma
was diagnosed with lung cancer Ihe doctors operated
on her and took one of her lungs. She goes regularly
for checkups and two months ago they found cancer
in her other lung. The doctors have done everything
possible for her and they give her one year to live.
My grandma stays with us so we can take care
of her. It's hard seeing her like this, but there's not
much a sixteen year old girl can do. How can I cope,
or help her? Any advice?
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
Uncle Mike's advice to you is the same advice he gives to himself:
love and cherish what you have for as long as you have it. The great
lesson that death teaches all of us is that we take our lives and the
people in them too much for granted. Rather than the first day of the
rest of his life. Uncle Mike greets each morning with the realization
this could be his last one on the planet. It helps him prioritize
things. People die every day and few of them ever see it coming. Like
all living things, your grandmother's days are numbered. Knowing
roughly what the number is can, and should, give you both a new lease on
life. The sadness is not that your grandmother is going to die. All of
us do that. The sadness would lie in not appreciating her while she's
alive. Spend as much time with her as you can and ask questions about
her life. Who was she as a girl? What is she most proud of? What's
the best advice anyone ever gave her? How did she and your grandfather
meet? What was your mother like as a child? What we all realize as we
get older is that there's much more to people than we thought. Learn
from this woman so that who she is will live on through you.
You can also use this time to learn what you can about death and decide
for yourself what it is and how you feel about it. Uncle Mike stopped
believing in death years ago when he learned there was no room for it in
the equations of quantum physics, our best picture of the way things
are. Behind the world of form, the universe exists as consciousness.
Each point of it is self aware. You, your grandmother, and Uncle Mike
are all point conscious observers: unique, one of a kind perspectives
of the unfolding of creation. Like every other perspective, we were all
there at the big bang and will be there for the next half of forever.
Everything is in motion, busily on its way somewhere else. Uncle Mike's
body is busily on its way to system breakdown and recycling. His
consciousness sees this as a change in perspective rather than a
tragedy.
Dear Uncle Mike,
I'm 28 and my girlfriend is 24. We moved in together four months ago.
A month ago her 17 year old sister moved in with us. She wasn't getting
along at home so we told her she could stay with us and finish out her
senior year. She started flirting with me the day she moved in. My
girlfriend mostly laughs it off. I did too at first but it's getting
worse. Nights when she's at work, her little sister walks around in a
towel or watches tv in a long t-shirt and no underwear. This isn't my
imagination. She goes out of her way to rub against me and when we're
alone her good night hugs aren't innocent. She knows I know she's
coming on to me but pretends she's just kidding around. This is driving
me crazy. It doesn't help that my girlfriend and I aren't getting along
great right now. Short of moving out, I don't know what to do. One of
these nights I'm going to weaken. She keeps reminding me she'll be
eighteen in two months.
B.L., Portland, Oregon
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Dear B.L.,
Uncle Mike suggests you remind yourself you could spend little sister's
birthday behind bars. Depending upon your part of her good night hugs,
you might already be in violation of some very serious laws. The moral
situation is even worse. You know better, she apparently doesn't. What
you're dealing with is a kitten sharpening her sexual claws on her big
sister's boyfriend. Entire soap opera subplots are built around
scenarios like this and, unless you'd like to see your social network
dissolve along with your opinion of yourself, you don't want to act out
your converging urges.
Although a trusting person by nature, Uncle Mike has a hard time
believing that, if your girlfriend knew what was going on, she'd be
laughing it off. By tradition, older sisters can read younger sisters
like cheap novels, which can only mean that most of the low rent
dalliance you're dallying with takes place behind your partner's back.
This behavior makes you a swine. Since you're the card carrying adult,
and have chosen to keep you and Lolita's business to yourself, it's your
responsibility to apply the bucket of cold water. Gently but firmly
tell the little temptress to put some clothes on, knock off the flirting
and get started on her homework. Tap your own forehead with a mallet
and direct your attention at the woman you're supposed to be involved
with. With all due respect, you don't sound like a pillar of strength.
If neither relationship gets better quick. Uncle Mike suggests you do
the manly thing and run like the wind.
Dear Uncle Mike,
My husband's son is 14 and lives with his mother. He comes over most
weekends. The two of us have never gotten along, a real personality
clash, but we're civil and all. Last weekend, ten dollars was missing
from my purse. No one else was in our home but him. I haven't told my
husband because he's got a temper and would be real mad. I just wish
he'd not come over but that won't happen of course. I'm (upset) because
I can't leave my purse just lying around. How do you get a kid to stop
stealing?
Drafted Mom, Astoria, Oregon
Dear Lady,
If you don't mind Uncle Mike saying so, you're a real piece of work
The youngster in question is your husband's son. If his welfare is not
your concern, you should desert your post and retire to a cave where you
can further hone your talent for ignoring the needs of others. Children
steal because they feel powerless and imagine that money, or hubcaps,
will provide it. The only power that deserves the name is love.
Surprising as it might seem, the young man probably thinks you don't
care about him, that you might even wish he weren't a part of your life.
Like it or not, you're part of his, and your role as an adult (there's a
chuckle) is to give him the tools he needs to have a life instead of a
case history. If 1) you're certain the ten dollars was there and that
your husband didn't take it, and 2) you think the boy's father would
behave badly if you told him your suspicions, keep your dealings between
you and the young person you're role modeling for. Next weekend, hand
him a ten dollar bill. Tell him a boy his age needs some spending money
and you forgot to give it to him last week. No, this isn't rewarding
bad behavior, it's encouraging a healthy sense of shame, and letting him
know there are people he can trust. The real trick is being one
I heard that Time magazine is deciding who to
put on the cover as the most influential person of the
century and immediately my mind's eye saw an image:
a woman surrounded by a bunch of kids, "kids in stair
steps" as my family used to say about people who had
kids about as often as possible. Sort of like chain
sm oking—actually chain smoking is a bit more
conscious process; you light another cigarette just as
you finish the first. With kids in stair steps, none of
them really get grown before another takes the
parents' attention, resources, time and patience. That
first image was, of course, a poor, downtrodden third
world woman, probably in a sari. That's the harsh,
culture-bound image that first comes to my mind
when over population crosses it.
Weeks later I ran into lid at the post office. We
chatted about many things, especially because Ed has
had wide-ranging experience and in spite of that, still
seems to have a good sense of humor. At one point he
observed, "Well, a lot of problems are because there
are just too many people. We ought to get rid of
everybody over 55, they're not useful anymore—but I
don't want to do that because I'm over 55 myself."
I responded, "No, Ed, keep the women over
55. They can't procreate any more and there's still a
lot o f useful things they can do—not like you guys
who can keep on bearing offspring." I was thinking of
teaching, nursing, and giving sound advice, which we
older women love to do.
Then Ed suggested a good, strong, puzzling
disease that would reduce world population, noting
however that science loves the challenge of a sturdy
disease, and so far science is winning most of the time.
Ed observed, quite rightly, that any other
overpopulated species starves, but whenever famine
hits, we humans rush around sending in relief. Eid's
final suggestion was to have four out of five people
sterilized early in their lives. I didn't think to offer an
old idea, that people should be licensed to raise
children—it's one of the only life and death situations
where a training course, owner's manual, or fitness test
isn't required. Parenting would become a privilege.
The comment that "there are just too many
people" occurs more and more in conversations with
diverse people about diverse situation from traffic, to
pollution, to housing costs, to getting a spot at your
favorite recreation site. In fact the population of
W ashington State is predicted to almost double within
ten years. Overpopulation is on a lot of people's
m inds—but the concern is bucking a powerful cultural
tide running the other direction. That tide is what
demographers and sociologists call a pro-natalist
position.
Any young woman juggling a job, a home,
and debating whether or when to have a baby knows
exactly what a pro-natalist attitude is. It's your parents
leaning on you for a grandchild. It's your doctor
looking at you funny when you're 32 and haven't had
a child yet. It's your church telling you birth control is
wrong and abortion is a mortal sin—and in some
countries a crime as well. As long as these attitudes are
so deep seated, people will hesitate to be childless.
Even our equivocal attitude about celibacy may be
based on mistrust or confusion about someone
choosing not to have sex and children. We see it still as
"unnatural." O f course, this underlies our attitudes
about homosexuality as well.
As long as these attitudes permeate all the
layers of our public and private lives, we are unlikely
to do anything about the population problem. Public
policy, sexual health practices, personal choices, all are
impacted. However, this is one area of life where
people as individuals have the opportunity to "think
globally, act locally." If you believe there are just too
many people, you can choose not to add any to the
group, using whatever method fits your ethical
system,. The problem is that the most ethically
unchallengeable system, from St. Paul to Ghandi, is
abstinence—and it's also the most difficult to practice.
On the other hand, technology provides as with
methods that arc ethically controversial but easy to
use.
So the Delhi woman with the swarm of kids
seems too easy a target. Quick and distant, implying
the problem is someone clse's behavior, someplace
else. And the concept of the childless couple as
"selfish" is also inappropriate. Being childless may
come to be seen as one o f the most selfless things a
person can do.
A SHO E & A C C E S S O R Y BO U TIQ U E
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IN AN UNJUST WORLD... JUSTICE.
He dares to be a fool, and that is the
first step in the direction of wisdom.
— James Gibbons Huneker
Personal Injury Lawyer
GREGORY KVEOl K3
Letters to Uncle M ike: PO Box 1242, Depoe Bay, O R 97341
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