Dealing with death and parents.

Why, in our culture, can we applaud violence and death on film but shy away from discussing how to handle both the death of one parent and the survival of the other, who is then left alone? Magazines print pieces suggest, ing how to handle moving away, career changes, infant care, relationships with in-laws, financial interests, checkbook control, and improved sexual relations, but they don't offer suggestions on this specific and very sensitive topic of death and survival.

Currently, television commercials openly call attention to yeast infections, pregnancy testing, douches, menstrual supplies, and genital scent that can be altered by special deodorant sprays. Condoms are available to schoolchildren and famous movie stars preach safe,sex during 10-second "the more you know" television spots.

Why, then, when private parts have become public topics, do we still feel uncomfortable addressing the inevitable death of our parents? More importantly, why have we no resources for understanding what to do with the surviving parent?

It has always been easier to deal with the known. We may feel embarrassed when a douche commercial comes on, but that's a concrete product. The ad ends, the program resumes, and our self-consciousness passes. Mortality, however, is an abstraction (even though a real segment of living) and too difficult to truly grasp. We live and are, so the fact that we someday won't is mind-boggling. Our parents are buffers between living and expiration; when they're gone, we become the "next generation."

We're frightened. Our parents were tall, strong people who had answers to questions, hankies ready to blot tears, encouragement when we fell failure was imminent. They were role models; as we grew, they became people to challenge and weaker both in fact and in our eyes. How could that happen? How could one die and leave the other behind needing care? How could that generational bridge that protects us from eternity begin to chip and crumble? Where is the guidance to help us understand the process?

It may be "cool" to purchase a condom or to pick up a pregnancy kit, but there is nothing tangible to grab onto when deciding what to do with a surviving parent. Our values are challenged when we dabble with the unknown or unfamiliar. Perhaps because we come from different backgrounds and family units and have diverse philosophies and religious practices, mainstream publications prefer not to explore and help us with the issue. Maybe. All the how-tos on every newsstand shy from truly emotional topics. This isn't mere TV embarrassment; it's the help feel because living is altered by a family member's death and we, in the family, are all survivors.

Our personal parenting inadequacies are met by drawing on the way we were treated as children. What did our own mothers do when we screamed with sunburn or stayed out too late on a date or had a crush on someone who didn't return the affection? What did our fathers say when we wanted to be movie stars or the first woman on the moon or a male ballet dancer? Did we get praise or indifference? Did we hear encouragement or outrage? Did we get soothing or sarcasm?

We've nothing to draw on in learning to be sensitive and helpful with a surviving parent. It's scary.

Parents often have purchased individual graves either in pairs or for many family members. Usually paragraph one in each last will and testament states that the estate of the deceased will pay for burial, removing that financial burden from the children.

But we've also a dilemma before a parent dies, when that person is terminally ill.

Children seem to have a need to verbally "make arrangements" for a surviving parent when the other parent is terminally ill, uttering statements like "Mother can't live alone in that big house," "Mother must make plans now to move to a warmer climate," "What if Dad should fall on the ice and there's no one to care for him?" "She needs to consider where to put money so she can draw on it," "Who has power of attorney?" and so forth.

Siblings squirm with "Dad can't cook or do laundry," "I have three kids of my own and can't take her in but you can" as invasion of privacy seems to be lurking. Phrases such as "My house isn't big enough:' "I don't have another bedroom like you do:' or Who'll entertain him since I work outside the home?" get exchanged. The survivor is a checkerpiece being slid from black square to red square while the verbal interplay goes on behind the scenes.

Sometimes there is real concern for the loved ones; sometimes the adult child merely wishes to place the parent in a controlled situation so minimal work has to be done either in emotional or calendar time. The theater has portrayed this in such plays as I'm Not Rappoport and The Gin Game, and the audience has sat in the darkness seeing into their own what if mirrors. Many exit with the justification that Dad is better off in a nursing home or Mom is surely happier in a geriatric condo in Florida.

We're concerned for our own lives and families, yet also for the generation that preceded us and unconditionally gave us love as well as financial and emotional support. We're straddling the fence of caring and confusion, acceptance and intrusion, freedom and burden. There's no support group to help us through our conflict.

How often do we think about giving a surviving parent credit for decades of living, having intelligence, understanding that a spouse is deceased, and allow him or her to make self-decisions? Why should someone aged suddenly be told to behave in a certain way as if he or she were a toddler? How come one was able to function as part of a couple but it is assumed that that same person will deteriorate without constant custodial care once his or her mate is gone?

We can give emotional support, reinforcing capability, personal decision, making, and allowing our loved one to know we'll back up whatever choices he or she makes. Others have no right to decide that a person must evacuate his or her home due to the death of the spouse. "What will become of her (or him)?" is too often really "If we don't make sure that she (or he) has someone else to live with, we may eventually have to look out for her (him)." Most can't admit to such thoughts without guilt so they camouflage them with "best intentions." We all need to project ourselves into that situation for only a moment and think: wouldn't we want loved ones to support our strength, to encourage our ability to determine how and where we should live, and to remind us that we're competent and mature and loved?

Out of love and pain, children attempt to direct a surviving parent's life, not wanting to hear any future burial requests. It takes courage to speak and courage to listen.

Learning to be tuned into another person's needs is just that--learning. It may be trial and error; it may take longer or shorter in comparison to others. We've no instinct to home in on human behavior; no school course, except life, instructs us on being "human " We help our growing children by not being pushy; we show them, for example, how to tie shoes and then allow them to struggle with the fingering as we praise efforts. When we become aged and ill, the roles are reversed at the same time our adult children are teaching their own offspring to tie shoes. This really is overwhelming.

So a surviving parent should also be aware of the children's fears and needs. The once-protector may now require protection and feel agitated about this fact. It's hard to relinquish the parental role and ask grown children for assistance. But love, needs loving in return, so adult children and parents have to be able to both give, both take, and both accept.

The sense of self we give our children as they grow is a gift we also give to ourselves. Why should that be prematurely taken away? When role reversal is truly necessary, some don't fight it, but independence is imperative for healthy survival.

An 18-month-old infant clamps lips when he or she doesn't want any more milk or juice. The toddler may mimic the words "No, no" as it sticks out tiny fingers to touch an object parents want left alone. A six-year-old yells "I can do it myself" whatever that "it" may be at the time. Teen clothes often shock as teens conform to one another but outrage conservative parents. Each step leads toward independence and self-awareness. Just because one is aged or widowed doesn't justify taking that identity away.

What can an adult child do for a surviving parent? Be there for a single loved one the same way you're there for your own youngsters: available to listen ready to inflate egos, encouraging, sensitive, and thoughtful. Certainly distance in miles might make physical visiting either impossible or infrequent, but words of comfort and phone calls communicate caring.

Listen, don't just hear, when a request for burial is made. Don't say, "Let's not talk about that now" or "You're not going to die soon so I don't want to hear about it " Perhaps it's important to that parent to have a specific eulogy or type of funeral or placement at the gravesite. Consider honoring the request; you might be asking something like that of your own children in the future. Wouldn't you want them to grant, if possible, your wishes?

Offer, don't insist. "May I help with your income tax?" "Could you use suggestions on anything?" "Can I interest you in joining us on a family vacation, and you won't be along as just the babysitter?" It's quite different from "You have to . . . right?

Allow the parent to grieve, to talk about the deceased, to remember. Even when painful, pain is real, pretense is not.

Many of us tell our children at bedtime, "Call me if you need me"--a promise that we'll come if summoned by a bad dream or if they need a drink of water. We make our children feel safe.

"Call me if you need me"--that might be the better way to arrange another's life.

Lois Greene Stone is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, On the Issues, and Accent on Living, among many other publications. She has also taught English composition at a private college in Rochester, New York.