A lesson before dying
Regarding the Jan. 15 Ask Sahaj column, “I’m terminally ill. My wife is ‘freaked out’ I’m preparing for my death.”:
In the last few months of her life, my mom asked me to go casket shopping with her. I did. She kept it very much as if shopping for a new coat at a department store. Then she chose the dress she wanted to be buried in and put it at the front of her closet, on the door. After she died, I went to view her before the funeral. Finding that she didn’t look like herself, I reapplied her makeup and rearranged her hair. She looked as pretty as an elderly woman can. It was a final act of love to give her the sendoff she desired. Even writing this brings a tear to my eye 30 years later.
Susan E. Campbell, Quincy, Massachusetts
A lesson after dying
Following the Dec. 28 letters package “My best friend’s funeral changed how I saw him,” Post Opinions asked readers, “Have you learned something surprising at a loved one’s funeral?” Here are some of the responses.
My great-uncle Joseph “Mickey” Carmel served in World War II. My family idolized him, and my dad (his nephew) named my older brother after him. Uncle Mickey never married but lavished his attention on his family. When he died at age 54 in 1969, my aunt cleaned out his apartment and learned, through letters and other items she found, that he was gay. Like all gay service members of his era, he had to keep that secret deeply hidden. Uncle Mickey served a country that didn’t serve him back.
Kevin Jennings, New York
My father was a man of few words. Hardly any words, truth be known. Following the graveside portion of his funeral, my husband and I were approached by a trio of big, burly guys about his age, tears streaming down their faces. “We will miss your dad so much,” they told me. “He was so much fun, always making us laugh.” They went on like that for a few minutes, we thanked them, and they walked away. Once they were out of earshot, my husband turned to me and asked, “Do you think they were at the wrong funeral?” Thirty years later, I’m still sad that my father never showed that side of himself to our family.
Cheryl Mandala, Phoenix
My mother enlisted in the WAVES and served in D.C. as a Navy yeoman who transcribed top-secret meetings. During that time, her only sibling worked back home at a plant while caring for their elderly parents. My aunt wrote to her sister every day. We found hundreds of letters when my mother died. We learned a great deal about our family, but the letter that had the most impact on us was the one my aunt began with “TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY AND I GET TO VOTE!” It was 1945, and she had turned 21. That says a lot about what was important to the greatest generation: democracy.
Anne Yandall, Bay City, Michigan
Daddy, who was 93 when he died in 2014, was conscripted into a segregated Army where he watched German prisoners of war get better food than he and his men did. He also got to know some Tuskegee Airmen while they were in officer candidate school.
At his funeral, I learned he had taken a class taught by W.E.B. Du Bois at Atlanta University. According to the person recounting this, Daddy said DuBois was an “okay” teacher.
Miriam Jean Neuhaus, New York
Decades of darkness
I live in Hawaii, a place many people call paradise. Yet I find myself unable to feel happy here. I go to bed crying, wake up crying, pick up my children from school in tears. I cry while watching the news. I cry while staring at my phone, opening WhatsApp again and again, checking whether my friend in Iran has seen my reply since she sent me a video of people demonstrating on her street. I wait for the check mark that tells me she is still alive.
It has been 47 years since the Islamist regime took over Iran. What happened in 1979 was not a revolution; it was the beginning of a dark era. Over these 47 years, men, women and children have been tortured and killed in the streets and in prisons for the simplest reasons: asking for freedom.
History teaches us to recognize tyranny when we see it. When we look back, we ask how the world allowed the Nazis to rise — and took so long to stop them. Why hasn’t the world mobilized against the Islamist regime that has persisted for nearly half a century? Why is the suffering of Iranians treated as something the world can endure indefinitely?
I no longer believe that justice will come from God. Justice has never arrived on its own. It has always come from people who choose to act. From voices that refuse to be silent.
Until Iranians’ suffering ends, I will continue to cry from paradise, watching my homeland bleed, hoping the world finally refuses to look away and rises to defend what is right.
Mahsan Rafizadeh, Honolulu
Calling foul in youth sports
The Jan. 18 Business article “Youth sports costs soar: $50 tryouts, $3,000 teams” exposed a national crisis that leaves millions of kids on the sidelines. Youth sports is not a commodity; it is where childhood and life skills happen. Public policy should reflect this value by ensuring every kid has a fair shot to play. When private equity companies take over and profit becomes the North Star, our children’s well-being suffers and family budgets buckle.
A solution is on the horizon in California, where nearly 1 in 3 kids stopped playing sports in the past three years. Signed in October, the Youth Sports for All Act will create a blue-ribbon commission to evaluate establishing a centralized structure to oversee youth sports, like many other countries have.
Pay-to-play keeps eroding access. Let’s remove the swarm of private equity firms from youth sports and restore what the system is meant to deliver: opportunity, health, belonging and fun. The only “PE” that belongs in youth sports is play equity. And that’s more valuable than a 20 percent return on investment.
Renata Simril, Los Angeles
The writer is president of the Play Equity Fund.
Post Opinions wants to know: Are youth sports in America broken? What could be done to improve them? Share your response, and it might be published as a letter to the editor. wapo.st/youth_sports
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