About the book:

The purpose in writing this book was three fold:
1. To share my true feelings about the incredible journey of owning my own business and working with the elderly and disabled. It has allowed me to develop a business that fits a need I saw very early. I was able to tailor the business to what I believed was the way people should be treated in their infirmed phase of life – with dignity and respect.

2. To show how it is better to laugh than wallow in despair. If you laugh at yourself, you never have to suffer people laughing at you, but rather with you.

3. That humor is a way of connecting. It has a healing power of its own, and sometimes is the better medicine.

These are some of the stories of very brave clients who have taught me many life lessons. Their memories should not be lost and this was the best way I know how to preserve them. These clients have my utmost respect and my thanks for allowing me to be a part of their lives and telling their stories.

My clients helped me put this book together. One gave me the title (unknowingly) and one painted the cover of the book for me.

If you would like to share similar stories with me, please feel free to email them to me at bhance@snet.net.

I hope you enjoy the book which I will hopefully finish and publish in 2004.

This book is cheaper than a face lift…as you read through it you’ll see how the corners of your mouth turn up! Some of my clients can be as salty as corn beef, but under their tough veneer, is usually a person who wants to laugh. My job is to make that possible for them, as you’ll see from these stories.

Excerpts:
“…for all their talk, men aren’t as brave as they perceive themselves to be. Did you ever go to a mall with your other (who is sure he is your significant) and need to stop at the lingerie store? You know the store that has the catalog men deem as equally necessary in the bathroom as toilet paper? Well, all of the sudden the fear of being in the presence of thousands of bras, panties, and garter belts instead of gazing at them in a catalog, renders him powerless to cross the demilitarize zone or threshold. Isn’t this every man’s fantasy? When asked if this was indeed every man's fantasy, my husband replied, “Well, not if they’re empty”. Do they not have any imagination to create the fantasy image? Could someone explain this phenomenon to me? Why wouldn’t they want to meander around the store creating their own fantasy images? I guess its better this way. Otherwise, when we choose to do the Ya-Ya thing with our girlfriends we’d be stifled by men wandering throughout the store with glazed looks on their faces and drool on their chins.”

"…aren’t we always surprised to see our derriere in a three-way mirror after the winter hibernation (and we have no clue what happened over the winter months)? On the other hand, I think it should be mandatory that every woman over a certain age, or a certain weight, have a three-way mirror installed in her closet. If you doubt the necessity of this law, go to any airports. The sights you see there clearly back up my belief (pun intended). I didn’t know stretch pants could stretch so far. Sometimes I sit there and pray that the seams of some of those stretch pants are in fact reinforced with galvanized thread, because some little kid could end up with their picture on a milk carton if some of those seams ever let loose. (My best weight ever, by the way, was 8 lbs.10 oz.) Then my mother brought me home from the hospital with the single purpose of fattening me up. And she was good! My baby pictures show thigh rolls that resemble that of a Sharpei’s…”

“…when I was approaching the big 40 (OH), I found myself in a period of unrest. I had suffered through many personal crises, and I was extremely frustrated in my job. There was a hunger for an experience that kept nagging at me, which I could not define as yet. A “silk-stocking” law firm had hired me as a probate paralegal a few years previous to this, and I was growing tired of trying to convince the male populated firm of the need to provide additional personal services to the elder population. It was my feeling, although not shared by the Management Committee, that the firm had a moral, if not an ethical responsibility to help protect and guide their older clients through their most challenging years. Gerontology to them and the average American (some l8 years ago) was thought to be some foreign disease….”

“…my first client was a “genuine” proper lady. In her day, she tripped the light fantastic with all of the most prominent figures in our city. I affectionately called her Claire De Bloom…. twice a year she would pack her trunks (or rather her trunks were packed by her handmaid) and board a ship that would leisurely sail her to the fashion capital of the world…the room resembled a bridal shop with racks of soft chiffons, shimmery satins, the finest silks, and aglow with sparkles from beads and sequins. A rainbow of color. I used to love going up the stairs in the summer when a breeze would come through an open window and lift the fabrics to create an exquisite, unrehearsed ballet, gracefully moving the bejeweled objects as if they were clouds in the sky. The walls would come alive with colors. The jewels acted as suncatchers hanging in a window only whirling and swirling and changing as the breeze blew across the dancers. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen…a perfect escape from life’s cruelties. It was like a magic carpet ready to take you anywhere you wanted to go.