The Weekend Economists travel the Yellow Brick Road, November 14-15.

[Demeter]

45. One well-documented effect of stroke is personality change

A vital piece of the brain goes dark (all pieces are vital), and everything that was resident there is lost. It can be rebuilt, to a certain extent, during healing, but the original is gone.

I refer you to the film "Regarding Henry" starring Harrison Ford, an excellent portrayal of this effect, quite heart-breaking at times...

That is when many families are brought to seek court-ordered guardianship or other means of protecting the afflicted from himself, and from the outside world that preys on the incapacitated.

Your father-in-law is resisting the loss of autonomy by any means possible. This is very common in the aging and infirm. I have seen 3 generations of men in my family (all genetically 100% Polish, of course) decline precipitously because their pride and their despair would not let them accept help with any give and take or strings or diminishment of their manly entitlement...even temporarily, and done with loving care.

We spend the first half of our lives growing, learning, building, bringing forth new life and new creations. We spend the second half saying goodbye to it all, trying to keep the minimums for good life going for ourselves and our contemporaries, while still worrying about the younger generations. The loss of my brother-in-law, so suddenly and without any room for negotiation, hit me hard this summer, as hard as it hit his wife, my sister, for now I am in charge of worrying about her...and she is not well, nor will she (100% Polish, remember) make any concessions. Well, she can afford it; most people can't. But I worry nonetheless.

But even worse now is the momentous changes that affect practically everyone on the globe, even if they aren't aware of it at the moment. We are going through economic and political convulsions that could easily turn into WWIII if the wrong people grab power and the wrong decisions are made.

That is why this election is so crucial, not just for America, but for the world. And having a lying, cheating, stealing Elitist in the White House is the death knell for so much that humanity has accomplished, that I want to cower under the bed until November 4, 2016, at which point, emigration or suicide might be the only options...

I was born an optimist, and Life hasn't beat it out of me yet. I know how to lay low, defer, delay, and wait patiently. I know how to live in the small cracks of Life and take whatever happiness can be found there. I know how to hope, and how to plan, how to give up, and how to find another way. I don't know very many people who can.