It’s that odd perfume that comes from Great Grandma Eunice when you reach down to give her a hug.

It’s that odor that wafts through nursing homes.

And now science is here to prove to us what we’ve already known.

Old people have an odd odor that is all their own.

And no, it’s not moth balls; it’s not an old person perfume; it’s not the fact that their skin hasn’t touched bath water in a couple days; nor is it the decade old clothes that have re-worn for consecutive days (I pull that trick in the winter when I don’t sweat).

In fact, notes Johan Lundström, Ph.D., the lead author of the study, the smell of older people is a universal smell that can be identified from Asia to Alaska.

There’s even a word for this smell in Japan: kareishū.

Here’s the explanation for “the smell” from Dr. Lundström:

The root cause of the old person smell is still a mystery, but the study notes that long-term changes to the skin glands may be involved. Lundström suspects it also may be related to an accelerated rate of cell decay. “As cells die at a faster pace, they might give off a different odor that is unique to people with old age,” he says. (from CNN.com)

*****

As a funeral director, I know the small all too well as I frequent nursing homes more often that some of the occupant’s family.  It’s a smell that has always elicited sadness in me.  Sadness for those who sit in waiting, often unvisited by outsiders.

I’ve read before that babies have a certain smell that neurologically encourages attachment in adults.  We can actually love our infants more just by smelling them.

So, what does the “old people smell” encourage?  For me, it’s encouraged a sense of the holy … a sense of both respect and a degree of otherness.  An otherness that’s been created by a recognition of life and death.  An otherness that we can learn from.

Next time you smell the “old people smell”, maybe we should just sit and listen (not necessarily to their words) to the holy that’s apart of the end stage of life.

Here’s 10 reasons why we aren’t vulnerable:

One.  Vulnerable = needy.  Nobody wants to be seen as needy.  The image of a sniveling child, begging the help of their parent is so infantile.  We’ve grown out of that.  We’re adults.  We stand on our own.

But, vulnerability isn’t the same as neediness.  Vulnerability is a sign, not of dependence, but of a strength that bespeaks of our ability to be so confident in who we are that we’re willing to allow others to help define us.

Two.  Vulnerability means giving control to someone else.  Vulnerability is a giving of ourselves to someone else and allowing the response of the other to actually affect, change and/or hurt us.  If you’ve been hurt, if you’ve been abused and mistreated, vulnerability is next to impossible.  But, oddly, it’s when we’ve regained control and allowed ourselves to be vulnerable again that we know we’re beginning to move past our abuse.

Three.  This piggybacks off of number two.  Vulnerability means trusting that someone else will take that control and treat it gently and with respect.  By giving someone else control over you in your vulnerable state, you’re committing an act of trust.  We should choose wisely who we are vulnerable with.  Only those we trust.

Four.  Fear of being gossiped about.  “Did you see that post Caleb wrote on his blog last week?  He talked about suicide, leaving God and his wife.  He’s sooo … just sooo effed-up.”  And while we all appreciate concern, when we’re vulnerable and others see it, they will talk.  So be it.

Five.  Vulnerability can create misinterpretation.  It’s one thing to be talked about, it’s an entirely different thing to be misinterpreted.  Others will see it as weakness.  Other’s will see it as being needy.  Other’s will see this small chapter in your life and use that chapter to define your story.  “He’s so weak.  He’s messed up.”  Vulnerability isn’t weakness.  When done well, vulnerability is STRENGTH.

You can survive the gossip and misinterpretation because your story will shine brighter when this chapter is included.

Six:  Vulnerability is ungodlike.  At least that’s what we’re told.  In our pursuit to be like gods (and like God), we assume that we have to always be in control, always in control of our emotions; we might find that we’re trying to be like a god that doesn’t exist.  It would seem that God is weak, that God shows emotions … that God bleeds.

Seven.  Vulnerability doesn’t equal masculinity.   Who defines masculinity anyways?  I get it, in traditional cultures, men were the ones who were supposed to be strong, impervious to their emotions so they could fight through the difficulties of finding a way to provide for the family.

But, if you’re reading this, you don’t live in a traditional culture.  So be strong, learn to communicate your emotions and be weak.

Eight.  We associate vulnerability with an uncontrolled emotional state.  Wrong.  Vulnerability is intelligently expressing your troubles, concerns and pains.  Emotions come with vulnerability; but vulnerability isn’t simply emotions.

Nine.  Vulnerability often involves a move away from our pride and an admission that we are indeed in need of help.  Pride.  Keeps us from doing things we’re not good at.  This is where statements such as, “You can’t see me like this” come from.  Why can’t we see you like this?  Because seeing you like this might make us think that you’re human?

Ten.  I’m just not good at vulnerability.  Most of us aren’t.  We’ve been taught that it’s ungodlike, uncontrolled, too emotional, too needy, too trusting, too out of control, subject to misinterpretation and so on and so forth.   So, you don’t do it.  You aren’t vulnerable.

“If you’re lost and alone, if you’re sinking like a stone”, find someone you trust and commit an act of strength; an act that will help you grow; an act that will help your story move onward; an act that will increase your self-confidence.

For many of us, the ONLY time we will find the strength to be vulnerable is when we are dying; change up your story and be vulnerable in both life and death.

Welcome.  Welcome to the state of vulnerability.  Welcome to the state of humanity.

Being old isn’t always defined by the amount of times you’re rode the earth around the sun.  My grandfather is 82 and he has more spunk and energy than I do.  In some regards, age is an attitude … an outlook on life.

Here are ten characteristics I’ve noticed that define the “old outlook” on life.     

One: Increasingly skeptical

Two:  Increasingly isolated

Three:  increasingly worried

Four:  Increasingly moralistic

Five:  Increasingly unwilling to try new things, hear new things, embrace new things, see new things …

Six:  Increasingly tribalistic

Seven:  Increasingly protective of things over people

Eight:  Increasingly sedentary.  There’s a difference between retiring and becoming sedentary.  Old people do the latter.

Nine:  An increasing idealization of the past

Ten: Increasingly becoming more and more like a dead person.

WHAT ARE OTHER CHARACTERISTICS OF THE “OLD OUTLOOK”?

Enclosed in each body bag was the small body of a burnt child.  I was unzipping the bag to see if they were viewable.  Charred.  Blackened.  Bald faces.  “No”, I thought to myself, “there will be no public viewing.”

And my face, my face looks down as I let things outside of my control paralyze me from the inside. Motionless, I sit as I remember that mother as she screamed out her grief in the funeral home.

When we think about the inevitable, how do we lift our heads?  How do we not just close our eyes and ask for the mercy of eternal sleep?

You will die.

I will die.

Maybe painful.   Maybe today, robbing me of watching my son grow.  Or maybe I die old, the last of my family, alone.  Or, maybe I will see my son die, unable to stop an inevitability that is stronger than I.

And yet, I’m reminded, as I sit paralyzed that although from dirt I was made, I am no longer.

“Stand up, child of God, so I can speak to you.  Stand up.  You were made in my image, you will create.  You will create what is good.  Stand up, so I can speak to you.”

So I stand.  I will not be paralyzed by what I cannot change, I will learn to smile.  I will be vulnerable.  I will stop and look at the stars, the flowers, the beauty of the snow, the fading transience of a passing sunset.  I will always have time to talk to you, to stop and help you and to be your friend.  Each day will be my masterpiece; each day, as I lay down my head to rest, I will see that it was good.

I will be the creator of the good.  I will be like God.  I will speak it into existence.

Here’s one option:

The following is some of the key text from a TEDx lecture called “Rethinking the Bucket List”.  It’s presented by Kathleen Taylor who is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, who directs the community engagement function of a large nonprofit hospice program:

People always ask me, “How could you enjoy your job … how could you like watching people die all day long?”  And I had the hardest time explaining that people at the end of their lives are incapable of bull shit.

When a person’s relationship with their body, with activity and doing changes, and when they’re facing the task of wrapping up the end of their life, a lot of the normal, worldly, daily distractions that tend to tempt us away from being honest with ourselves fall off the map.  And those distractions are different for everybody, there are things like being right, being important, being busy, being guilty, being self-conscious … that kinda stuff.  So good, bad or indifferent, at the end of their lives, many people become these … distilled … crystallized … pure versions of who they are. 

Out of this sense of authentic self, people get incredibly courageous, and open and intimate and honest.  They will talk about things they’ve never expressed before.  They will reconsider things that they’ve been certain about their entire lives.  They do brave stuff like change their mind.  And apologize.  And forgive.  They express love where it needs to be expressed and they manage to find joy in the smallest moments. 

As their body’s slow down, their perspective seems shift and their presence actually seems to expand.  The New York Times actually did a feature on a guy a former attorney who was diagnosed with ALS.  It quoted him as saying, “As I diminished, I grew.  As I lost so much, I finally started to find myself.”

I saw this theme of finding oneself over and over and over.  Not with everybody, but with most people and much more often than I would have thought.  The more I got to spend with people who were in their last chapter, the more I learned about the incredible transformative power of this kind of authenticity and what it could offer us and how it was possible.

Here’s the video in it’s entirety and it’s well worth your time:

2.  As displayed in Fred Clarke’s obituary, you can add an implied curse word for some spice, and then go on to mention bacon.  In fact, if your family finds a way to mention bacon in your obituary, it’s almost guaranteed that you were winning at life.

(Fred) wouldn’t abide self important tight *censored*.

During his life he excelled at mediocrity. He loved to hear and tell jokes, especially short ones due to his limited attention span. He had a life long love affair with bacon, butter, cigars and bourbon. You always knew what Fred was thinking much to the dismay of his friend and family. His sons said of Fred, “he was often wrong, but never in doubt”. When his family was asked what they remembered about Fred, they fondly recalled how Fred never peed in the shower – on purpose.

Fred’s obit is quite funny.  You can read the rest of it here.

3.  You can add a humorous, touching yet snarky quip like the one Robert James Smith‘s wife wrote in his obituary:

Robert James (Bob) Smith, 69, of Wilmington, North Carolina, surprised and annoyed his wife by dying in his sleep in the early hours of January 6, 2005.

4.  Or, you can skip the humorous and snarky part and major on the touching, exemplified by Stephen Schleis’ obit:

Before his passing on Sunday, Stephen Schleis had forged an 84-year-old trail of laughter, generosity, compassion and wisdom. He was more than a role model to his family. He was a hero.

He raised his five children in a modest three-bedroom home that he and his wife built in Barberton. Their love made it a castle.

Steve broke his back serving in the Navy duringWorld War II. For 30 years, he found comfort sleeping on the living room floor. Each morning, his children rolled him over so he could crawl to the corner and “walk” himself up the wall. Then we sent him off to work two factory jobs so we could afford private school and an in-ground swimming pool and basketball court on our quarter-acre lot — things he was far too busy to ever enjoy.

He wouldn’t eat until everyone in his household had their plates full. He never complained if he missed out on the apple pie or the warm rolls. Even at the end, confused by dementia and eating pureed food, he wouldn’t take a bite without whispering: “You first.” …

5. Or, you can bypass the touchy type obituary and just say it like it is … like the writer of this obituary did for a Mr. Roosevelt Conway:

Learning to die well is nearly the same as learning to live well.  If you want to have a good death, you need to starting thinking about how to have a good life.  Life and death go hand in hand.

So, as you reenter the work force on this Monday, here’s a little motivation to seek what you love.  If you’re stuck at a job that just pays you back in money, it’s time to evaluate how your living … preferably, you do that evaluating before you die.

“Better to have short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.”

Fall is the life of dying.

For us here in the Northeastern part of the U.S., our summers are humid and hot; so humid in fact, that no vistas exist.  You can stand on one side of a valley and be hard pressed to see the other.  Some days the humidity is so heavy it partially obscures the sun.

As summer gives way to fall and the seasons change, the cool air down climbs from the north, pushing our humidity away and opening up the vistas … opening up the clear skies.

For many of us – northeast or not – the summer is the activity pinnacle of the calendar year.  We’re outside working on our yards, the farmers are working their fields and most of us are travelling on vacations.

The humidity and activity of summer obfuscates perspective.

Fall brings with it the changing of the leaves of the deciduous trees.  And with those leaves comes beauty.  A shedding of the old.  A dying of extreme grace and vibrancy before the barrenness of winter.

As the sun sets in the Northeast fall, the skies light up with an array of colors … like no other season, the reds, oranges, and yellows dance across the sky for a couple minutes, changing with the flows … immeasurable beauty that an artist couldn’t paint in a couple days appears and vanishes in minutes.

A wasteful artist is the fall.

Clearer skies.

Perspective.

A new Beauty.

These are the characteristics that can surface in the season of dying.