BY CAROL ABAYA

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

THE SANDWICH GENERATION

The second month of 2012 is already here and the same old questions about life and death confront us. Sandwich generationers are particularly vulnerable because their loved ones are very vulnerable. What to do? What not to do?

Every year, I get these questions from adult children caring for their frail and often very sick parent(s).

Sometimes these are unanswerable questions because every life and situation is different.

What is “answerable” is that the progression of that last journey IS shared by everyone in the family.

In a special series (see my website) , I had pointed out that, “overall we are a death denying culture, which is strongly supported by modern medicine. And while death and dying issues became high public profile in the early 1990s with Jack Kevorkian and others who believe in a “kinder” end of life for mankind, there is no public consensus. There are still no rules for individual decision making. And no one can give advice as to what a “good” decision is for someone else.”