I have to confess that I love home-cooked turkey.  I am crazy about Thanksgiving turkey and the turkey leftovers.  When my wife, Rose, generously offers to send turkey home with our kids, I bar the door.

Yep, I long for Thanksgiving Day, filled with all of the traditional foods and fellowship.  For me, Thanksgiving’s attitude of gratefulness is hard-wired together in my brain with the heavenly aroma of turkey.  Like Ralphie Parker in Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story, I love turkey!  Turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, turkey gravy, turkey hash, turkey a la King, and gallons of turkey soup…

– BUT –

The true importance of Thanksgiving is taking the time to tell you how thankful I am for you.  My wish for you is that you experience the Thanksgiving joys of sharing, gratitude, and thankfulness.  J. M. Barrie once said, “God gave us memories so that we might have roses in December.”  Remember your roses today!

Rick Law and granddaughter Lucy with "Biker Chick" Kate

Do you enjoy a chance to act like a kid again?  I sure do!  Recently I received an invitation to a Halloween party at Heritage Woods in Yorkville, Illinois.  My friend, Jane Johnson, is the marketing maven there.  Heritage Woods of Yorkville is a supportive living facility (SLF), more commonly known as an assisted living facility.  Residents of SLFs need a little help from someone with their everyday activities of daily living.

I gathered up my costume and my four-year-old granddaughter Lucy and we headed off for the party.  Lucy was dressed up as Belle, who is better known as the “Beauty” in Walt Disney’s movie Beauty and the Beast.  Lucy was my date for the big party.

Lucy with "Three Grandmas"

When we arrived, we were greeted by the residents, the staff, and families, many of whom were dressed in holiday costumes.  As with most parties, it was lots of fun and there were way too many good things to eat!  Heritage Woods had a whole day of events.  The staff competed in a chili cook-off—the savory recipes were submitted by members of the local police and fire departments.  Not surprisingly, the dietary manager won first place.  (That seems to hint at the idea that the residents eat mighty fine!)  In second place was my friend Jane Johnson, the marketing director.  She had prepared her favorite “white chili with brown turkey” recipe.

First Place winner Joan with the Heritage director of nursing

More than 75 residents ate chili, listened to music, and enjoyed the ice cream sundae bar.  After lunch there was music and even dancing.  All the employees were dressed in costumes.  Norma, who was dressed as “the scarecrow”, was voted first place for staff costumes.  The best resident costume was won by Joan, who was dressed as a witch.  The pictures in this blog tell the story much better than words.

Norma the Heritage Woods Scarecrow

The only thing that surprised me was that many of the residents left the hubbub in mid-afternoon so they could catch a nap and refresh before dinner.  But a great time was had by all!  Thank you, Jane, for inviting me to a fun-filled afternoon at Heritage Woods of Yorkville.

Rick Law in 2004

Rick Law in 2009

Today I stop living a lie! Despite the old photo I have been showing you, I really don’t have brown hair anymore—and unfortunately, I now need to wear my eyeglasses all the time.  The photos above are both of me, Rick Law, 2004 and 2009.  I promise to no longer hide behind my former, more youthful 55-year-old portrait. No siree, I’m now a 59-year-old white-haired grandpa, and proud of it!

Let me reflect on the passage of the last five years—“Rick Law, 2004-2009.”  Someone insightfully said that the “dash” between dates symbolizes all of the life events that took place during that time.  As an  elder law attorney who works with the issues of the frail, the senior citizen, and those with disabilities of any age, some of the biggest changes that I have noticed over the last five years are:

1. Now the Boomers are coming into my office. Five years ago, my practice was totally focused on my parent’s generation, the Greatest Generation—but now it’s our turn.  We, the Boomers, are starting to die, become disabled, have memory issues and mobility issues, experience young-onset Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and have other longevity problems.
2. The federal and state governments have insufficient resources to meet the demand, so they keep creating even bigger barriers to accessing long term health care benefits.  This is true despite the current president’s recent health care promise that “I will not let a bureaucrat come between you and quality health care.”
3. The speed of change forces my legal team and I to have to “sprint” to remain honed and ready advocates.

For me personally, some of the most important things that have happened in the “dash” of the last five years are:

1. The startup and growth of our law practice, which is focused in the areas of estate protection and planning, disability, Medicaid, and veteran’s benefits for the over-65.  We have gone from three employees to a great team of twenty!
2. The birth of my four beautiful grandchildren—Lucy, Daphne, Evan, and Phoebe.
3. Having served over 1,500 clients throughout Illinois.
4. Delighting in the presence of our bright young attorneys—Diana M. Law, partner; Gina Salamone, Esq.; and Zachary Hesselbaum, Esq.  It makes me feel good to know that when and if something happens to me, these three can lead the legal team while serving our clients and their families.
5. The founding of the Veterans Benefit Institute, which has been one of my greatest legal experiences.  It has allowed us the opportunity to provide education about VA benefits for the over-65 wartime veteran to more than 80 law firms from around the country.
6. My entrance into the blogging world, which has allowed me to get to know some of the most wonderful, caring, and life-lifting people that I have ever met in my life.

So far this ‘aging thing’ has been full of love and life.  I am trying to follow the wit and wisdom of the great philosopher, Lucille Ball, who said, “The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.”  Here’s to eternal hope!

Rick

Dale Chatfield creating "landscape art"

“What in the world is that man doing?!” I asked attorney Zach Hesselbaum. It was a perfect summer afternoon and we had just left a client’s home at Alden of Waterford.  We could see a man creating something with homemade tools in an undeveloped area across from the residences.  We just had to get to know this man who, it turned out, was a pro at creating “landscape art”.

Dale Chatfield is a man of simple and powerful virtues.  His initiative, integrity, and personality have drawn people to him, and then he has enriched their lives.  Zach and I spoke with Dale and his charming wife Doris.  They have been married 70 years.

Dale was born October 10, 1911 in the central Nebraska plains.  He told us, “I grew up on the farm, and when I was a young man it seemed like I knew all the girls in Nebraska—but none of them were right for me!  It was The Great Depression, but I headed off to find my fortune in Denver.”  In Denver he lived frugally, studied accounting, and eventually got a job as an accountant for the Denver/Rio Grande Railway.  But Dale was never meant to just sit at a desk.  He is competitor, and is driven to always do more than what is expected.  Doris beamed and proudly told us, “Dale has spent his whole life going the extra mile.  We had a dry cleaning business for 32 years.  The business, called D&D Cleaners (for Dale and Doris), grew because my husband always gave extraordinary personal attention to each customer.  Even after people moved away from our neighborhood, they would drive back to have Dale do their cleaning.  People value that special personal attention.”

Even after retirement, Dale has kept on making life more fun for others.  From 1990 to 2005, he almost singlehandedly did the Christmas decorations and lights around their four-story senior residential center in Denver.  Doris told us, “He was the only one in the neighborhood who decorated all four sides of their building!  Everybody else just did the front.  You know, he climbed up and down those tall ladders even when he got to be 92.”

If you want to talk about playing horseshoes, Dale is your man.  He is a champion horseshoe player.  He played in a senior league that included 40 players.  During ten seasons, Dale was champion five years.  Leaving Denver and moving to Chicago in 2005, his biggest disappointment has been that he can no longer find anyone who wants to play horseshoes.  “They all say they have a bad back or a bad arm.  I can’t find anyone who will play with me.”

I asked Dale if he could provide me with some of his keys to a long and successful life.  He gave me a handwritten note that reads as follows:

1. God, parents, wife, and kids
2. Creator, genes, diet, exercise
3. Husband and wife 50/50; don’t let the sun set on your anger.
4. Honesty (don’t even take tax deductions if they are iffy)
5. Eat well but nothing fancy (oatmeal with raisins every day and good farm food)

Dale is a wonderful life model for the art of being—and living as—a very successful man.

Dale and Doris Chatfield

I will never take Santa Claus for granted again! Most of us grew up with Santa Claus as a beloved Christmas icon. Maybe you have one or two special Santa memories that you cherish. Did you take your kids to visit Santa and then tuck the photo away as a life-long Christmas treasure?  I sure did! I have always taken it all for granted. I never realized how hard it is for parents of a special needs child to give their kids a Santa moment.

At the July 2009, Autism Society of America conference, I met Santa John of Santa America whose mission is to bring “Unconditional Love, Hope and Joy wrapped in a warm Santa hug to special needs children and their families 365 days a year!”  (see Compassionate Santa Services.) Santa America and the Autism Society of America announced a “gentle alliance” that will help children affected by autism and their families have a rewarding experience with Santa for the holiday season.  “Autism is a complex neurodevelopment disability that typically appears in the first two years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others.”

Santa John told me, “Children dealing with Autism cannot tolerate the noise, crowds, and the wait involved in a Santa visit. Trying to take kids with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to see Santa at the mall is total sensory overload. As the child and his parent struggle to deal with the situation some other well-meaning adult scowl and say sarcastically, ‘Can’t you control your child?’ The true answer is no! They really can not control their ASD child.  Even if  parents try their best to give their child what every other normal family enjoys as an  American Christmas Tradition, the parents and the child are often humiliated and rejected.”

Santa-America tenderly serves three groups of very special children:

• Children in hospice or children with parents or grandparents in hospice; and
• Children with chronic pediatric conditions  or in palliative care; and
• Children suffering post traumatic stress due to abuse, violence, or other trauma.

I asked how Santa ‘knows all’ when dealing with such challenging situations. Santa John warmly shared that every Santa America Santa is given very careful training. He learns how to:

• Identify a child on the autism spectrum
• Learn to ‘tone it down’ to avoid causing a negative response
• Learn to use story-telling cards and relaxing techniques

Last Christmas, Santa John and the Kansas City-Autism Society Heartland Chapter gave over 50 families an opportunity to meet Santa and have photos taken with him. Santa John told me that, “visits were scheduled with 3-4 families every 30 minutes. Each family met with Santa in a private room next to a cozy fireplace. Santa had his Book of Good Boys and Girls with a page for each child listing their birthday, friends, teachers, and what they wanted for Christmas. Most importantly, the families knew that everyone there would be accepting of any behavioral differences their child might have.”

As I listened to this kind and caring man share his compassion for these special kids, I realized that he is a Santa who is a model of the true meaning of Christmas. Santa John says that what Santa America needs most is for us all to donate to help Santas across our nation deliver gifts of Love, Hope, and Joy.  Click here to donate.

Santa John’s amazing personal story will be the subject of next week’s blog.

Richard Law

My father, Richard Law, has died, but we celebrate his life!  Those of us who recently gathered at the hospital for many days and then the funeral home represent a ‘blended family’ of lineal descendants, adopted children, and step-family.  It has been amazing to experience the common expression of love and care from each one for each other.

My father gave each of us the treasure of unconditional love.  When Dad smiled at you, you knew that he loved you just the way that you were, and he never thought about how to “fix” you.  There were many times during Dad’s chemotherapy-induced illness that I marveled at his great and caring attitude.  I would often say to myself, “Rick, try to be more like Dad!”

My dad taught me how to live as a caring—and thus successful—person. He lived out many of the rules of success that have come to be my life standards.  Richard Law lived and died loving others and being loved right back.  That is a successful life!

Seven Rules for Life:

1. Dad Law made sure that I learned this one: the Golden Rule, here quoted from The Message Bible—  “Jesus said, ‘Here is a simple rule of behavior. Think about what you want from other people, then, grab the initiative and do that for them!  All of the Law and the Prophets hang on that.’”
2. Dad Law taught me, “Don’t do anything that you would not like to see on the front page of the Chicago Tribune.”
3. Dad Law showed me that “Integrity is doing what you promised to do, even when the circumstances have changed and you really don’t want to do it anymore.”
4. Ignore whatever comes before the ‘but’ in a sentence.  It does not matter how many words precede the ‘but”;  what someone really believes and will act upon follows the ‘but’.
5. Hire people who have demonstrated a success-pattern—e.g., when they got their first job at McDonald’s, did they rise to “Fry Chief”?  How people behaved in the past is an imperfect but helpful guide to how they will act in the future.  I cannot train people to have either initiative or integrity; they either have it or they don’t.  (My dear friend Jessica Bannister is a living example of this rule.  She is a model of initiative and integrity!)
6. Give winners a mission-goal, then get out of their way.  Nonetheless, you cannot expect what you don’t inspect!  (I also learned this one from my capable brother-in-law, Inno Okoye.)
7. You get the behavior that you reward.  When you experience negative behavior with your spouse, kids, and/or employees, check to see if you are actually the cause.  Many times, our leadership flaws create rewards that lead others to act badly to get our attention.

Good-bye Dad!  I pledge to live and love more like you!

Ethan Law, Dr. Van Tharpe, and Rick Law

When I was 17, my mentor, Don L. Dise, gave me the book Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz.  I learned one of the most valuable of life lessons.  We can choose how to think about our own thinking.  In addition, we can choose how we respond to life’s circumstances.  How we think about things will then determine our actions and our reactions.  Our actions and reactions will change our circumstances for the better or for the worse.  The bottom line is that we have the power to change our lives by choosing to improve our thinking and responding.  We have personal responsibility for choosing our thoughts and our actions.

My son, Ethan, will  graduate from high school this month.  Recently I asked him to come with me to  the “Peak Performance 101Workshop” at the Van Tharp Institute in North Carolina.

The focus of the class was on personal responsibility and improving one’s responses to circumstances.  “Respond-ability” is Dr. Tharp’s phrase for better living through better thinking and response.  The respond-ability session was kicked off with a teaching entitled “Rules for Being Human.”

• You will receive a body.  You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period.
• You will learn lessons.  You are enrolled in full-time informational school called life.  Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.  You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.
• There are no mistakes, only lessons.  Growth is a process of trial and error, of experimentation.  The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the life process as the experiment that ultimately “works.”
• A lesson is repeated until learned.  A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.  When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.
• Learning lessons does not end.  There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.  If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.
• “There” is no better than “here.”  When your “there” has become “here,” you will simply obtain another “there” that will again, look better than “here.” 
• Other people are merely mirrors of you.  You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
• What you make of your life is up to you.  You have all the tools and resources you need.  What you do with them is up to you.  The choice is yours.

It was exciting for me to share these truths with my son as he prepares to walk out the door of his family home to begin his own life of responsibility and respond-ability. 

I highly recommend that if you wish to improve your respond-ability, that you consider reading the book Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, recently updated by marketing coach Dan S. Kennedy.

HD Quilt Square

In March I was privileged to speak at the Illinois Conference on Huntington’s Disease.

I learned that Huntington’s Disease (HD)—like Alzheimer’s Disease, ALS, and Parkinson’s Disease—all originate from damaged brain cell mutations.  Sitting in the conference room with me were those who have been diagnosed with the disease, the loved ones who care for them, and family members who live with the threat of developing the illness themselves.  You see, the greatest horror of Huntington’s is that it is a hereditary disease that passes from parent to child, often striking up to 50% of family members!  At-risk young people live in dread of “crossing over” to becoming stricken with Huntington’s symptoms like involuntary muscle movement and cognitive decline.

I was especially moved by a display called the Huntington’s Disease Memory Quilt.  The quilt is an ongoing project, pieced with squares to commemorate the lives of those lost to HD.  Because Huntington’s Disease is hereditary, there were many quilt pieces arranged together for multiple family members afflicted by the disease. The effect was moving and staggering.  The top row contained a number of pieces in honor of the lost loved ones from just one family.  Another square which brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes depicted a semi-barren tree shedding its leaves, and read:

O Lord, I ask that you please
Let no more leaves fall
From our family’s tree.
May those who investigate
Find a cure.
Help those who care
Have strength to endure.
Hear our prayer, Dear Lord!

It went on to read, “Four fallen leaves—Bill, Billy, Ken, and Vera.”

Although Huntington’s Disease is a relatively rare disease that affects about 1 in 10,000 persons, the families that suffer from this killer often sustain a 50% casualty rate.  Here at Law ElderLaw, we have decided to help work toward a cure.  There is a “Team Hope Walk for a Cure” taking place in Wheaton, IL on Sunday, May 17, 2009.  I am going to be there with some of our team.  If you would like to join us, we would love to have you on our team!  Click here to join us or to create your own team!  If you live outside of Illinois but still want to help, you can find a walk in your state by clicking here.  We hope many of our friends will be able to come join us on May 17th and help us Walk for a Cure!

Greasy Temptation

“It creeps up on you.  One day you can’t seem to fasten your skirt, your pants feel snug, you notice a bulge over your seat belt.  You’re not alone; the average adult American gains about one pound per year.  And fat around your middle is the worst for your health, because it raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and possible dementia.”  (From the Nutrition Action Health Letter from the Center for Science and the Public Interest, December 2008.)

Like most North Americans, I’ve just finished a holiday eating binge.  It began when the first shot was fired on Thanksgiving morning to begin a marathon of eating that went on almost nonstop until I awoke on January 1st and got on the scale.  I feel a bit bipolar.  First it seemed like I could never get enough of those goodies laden with gooey fats, sweets, and calories—but now I want to remove all evidence of brownies, cookies, and eggnog from my gut.  That’s it!  I’ve looked in the mirror…  I’ve gotten on the scale…  I’m feeling fluffy.  Here we go again.  The January diet is a true national pastime, and one we seem to repeat over and over.  “But this year is going to be different,” we say to ourselves.  “This year I’m going to be a ‘smarter cookie’ when making food choices.”

Take a look at the Eat This, Not That! book series  recently published by David Zinczenko, Editor in Chief of Men’s Health Magazine.  Almost every page is a head slapper. The book has shown me how save over 500 calories when ordering a turkey sub sandwich.  I love to order those “healthy” Sierra turkey sandwiches at Panera Bread . What I did not realize is that this sandwich has 510 calories more than its equivalent turkey sub sandwich with cheese at Subway!  Who knew? 

With Eat This, Not That! you will find restaurant choices ranging from Auntie Anne’s Pretzels to Wendy’s.  You’ll be given good eating options for each restaurant so that you can save hundreds—probably thousands—of calories by avoiding foods that are filled with hidden fat and sugars.  It’s amazing to read how often foods that are labeled as having healthy ingredients such as turkey, salmon, chicken, and fruit juice are actually filled with high fructose corn syrup and trans fats.  This is a book you just can’t put down.

Zinczenko has given us a powerful tool to be able to enjoy the foods we love, but avoid the “waist inflators.”  I especially enjoyed the lists of the “worst foods in America.” The worst fast-food chicken meal is the McDonald’s five piece premium breast strips with creamy ranch sauce, which provides a whopping 830 calories; the worst [healthy] burger is a Ruby Tuesday’s Bella Turkey burger at 1,145 calories; and the worst coffee is the Starbucks venti strawberries and cream frappucino blended cream, which contains 750 calories.  

Mmm…  I’m beginning to crave a snack.  I think I’ll have Breyer’s all natural mint chocolate chip ice cream at only 150 calories per half cup, instead of the 330-calorie Haagen Dazs brand. Ahhh, the quest continues….
 
Happy healthy eating in 2009!