To receive a collection of Abby's most memorable -- and most frequently requested -- poems and essays, send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby's "Keepers," P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)
Incentive for Organ Donors Should Be to Do Right Thing
DEAR ABBY: I am not normally a person who would write to you, but I am prompted to do so as a result of the letter you printed relating to obtaining inheritance tax, estate tax or income tax incentives for people to become organ donors.
I am a lawyer who practices in the estate and tax field, and I thought that the proposition was interesting from that standpoint.
However, as a registered organ donor, I question both the proposition and your support of it. My questioning does not concern the need to get more organ donors, but it concerns the motivation of people to donate organs in return for tax relief.
I am concerned that our society needs to have "incentives" to do that which is right. Do we really need to have income tax deductions to support our favorite charities? Do we need tax incentives to encourage people to employ persons otherwise unemployable? Will charitable giving collapse if, for some reason, charitable deductions were eliminated from the Internal Revenue Code?
I would hope that the answer to these questions would be no, so I am not in support of the person who suggests that we give incentives to encourage people to become organ donors. The incentive should be that you are doing the right thing for the right reason. There is no other incentive necessary. -- ALFRED K. HETTINGER, ALLENTOWN, PA.
DEAR MR. HETTINGER: The answer to all of your questions could well be "yes." And I agree with you that no incentive other than doing the right thing for the right reason should be necessary.
However, at this time 66,717 people are on organ-donor waiting lists, praying for a heart, a kidney or a liver that will save their lives. Last year, 4,800 people died waiting for that prayer to be answered. Is it more immoral for someone to die because there is a shortage or organs available, or to offer tax incentives to those who would otherwise bury their dear departed, organs and all? To me, it seems like a terible waste.
My philosophy coincides with that of the late Robert Test, who wrote the following:
TO REMEMBER ME
At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped.
When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. And don't call this my "deathbed." Call it my "bed of life," and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives.
Give my sight to a man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman.
Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain.
Give my blood to the teen-ager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play.
Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.
Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body, and find a way to make a crippled child walk.
Explore every corner of my brain. Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her windows.
Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.
If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses, and all my prejudice against my fellow man.
Give my sins to the devil. Give my soul to God. If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever.
DEAR ABBY: I have been in contact with my high school sweetheart for almost a year. We are both 32, and it has been 14 years since we've seen each other. My best friend looked him up for me and he begged her to send me his e-mail address. We are both engaged to other people.
His girlfriend is 10 years younger than we are, but we are still in love and find each other very attractive.
At first, he wanted to see me very badly. But when the date for our meeting approached, he seemed to forget about it. However, he continues to write, and gives me subtle messages that he may still love me.
About three weeks ago he brought up meeting again and began calling. He said he had done enough damage to our relationship and he was serious about getting together this time, but when I asked him to make real plans and set a date, he ignored me. He just sent jokes and letters about what's going on with his ex-wife.
What can I do to make him go through with his plans this time? I think he's scared or just a jerk. Frankly, I'm getting fed up. Should I just stop writing? -- OUT OF PATIENCE, SANGER, TEXAS
DEAR OUT: If your former high school sweetheart were interested in anything more than e-mails, you would have seen him by now. It's time to log off the Internet and concentrate on your flesh-and-blood fiance -- because if he gets wind of this flirtation, he'll feel very betrayed. And he'll be right!
DEAR ABBY: After reading the letters about obscene phone calls, I thought you might be interested in the one I received the summer of my surgery. When I answered the phone I heard heavy breathing. Then someone with a deep voice said, "I've been watching ... I've been watching you getting undressed every night."
I started to laugh because I knew it couldn't be true. I was in a body cast from underarms to hips -- and confined to bed for four months! The caller then asked, "What's so funny?"
I said: "You'd better get glasses; I'm in a body cast."
There was no comment after that, just silence on the other end of the phone. That was the end of my one and only obscene call. -- STILL AMUSED IN CANADA
DEAR STILL AMUSED: Although few people would welcome a call from a self-identified Peeping Tom, you appear to have handled yours quite well. Thank heaven for caller ID, the feature that makes it difficult for obscene callers to get through without exposing themselves, and for call-blocking, which cuts them off entirely.
DEAR ABBY: Some friends of ours had a good solution for the folks who had "Mr. Uninvited" show up unexpectedly for dinner. They had a problem with a couple who regularly arrived just in time for dinner.
After dinner was over, they calmly put their plates down on the floor and let the dogs lick them completely clean. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, they picked up the plates and put them away in the cupboard! The uninvited guests never showed up around dinner time again.
Cleanliness is next to dogliness. -- ELIOT FROM PORTLAND
DEAR ELIOT: Cleanliness may be next to dogliness, but I'm praying that yours was a shaggy dog story. If it's not, there's no telling what you've unleashed.
For everything you need to know about wedding planning, order "How to Have a Lovely Wedding." Send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Wedding Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)
Husband Suffers Double Dealing by Wife Who's Cheated Twice
DEAR ABBY: You have helped so many people, I hope you can help me. I have been married more than 20 years, and we have two lovely daughters. Everything was fine until my wife started to work as a secretary for a bank branch manager.
When I found out they had been having an affair for nearly two years, it crushed me. I asked my wife if she wanted a divorce, and she said, "No." I didn't either for the sake of the children and, strange as it sounds, I still loved her.
She agreed to quit working there, and about the same time the branch manager got transferred to a branch in another city, so I thought everything was all right.
She then took a job as a secretary to an attorney in a law firm. I became suspicious when I would call her at the office at 2 or 3 in the afternoon and was told, "She and Mr. 'Jones' went to lunch and then to see a client to take a deposition."
A private detective discovered that the "deposition" was taking place in a motel! When I confronted her, she admitted that she and her boss were having an affair.
We saw a counselor and our pastor, but my wife insisted it was no big deal and everyone was doing it. She still doesn't want a divorce and assured me it was over as far as her cheating goes.
She now works in an office with only women, so I'm hopeful her cheating is a thing of the past.
Abby, how do I cope with the second infidelity, since it, too, lasted more than a year? I want to save our marriage because of the kids. I saw a psychiatrist, but he didn't help much. Any advice, Abby? I'm really hurting. -- CAN'T FORGET IN THE MIDWEST
DEAR CAN'T FORGET: I respect you for wanting to save your marriage for the sake of the children, but one person can't do it alone. A successful marriage takes the effort of two people working together.
I also admire the fact that you sought professional help in order to put these traumas behind you. However, I am troubled by your wife's attempt to excuse her infidelity by claiming, "It's no big deal and everyone is doing it." That is far from the truth, and a lame excuse at best.
If the marriage is to be healed, your wife must agree to marriage counseling to work on the issues that caused the infidelities in the first place. You have done everything you can; now the ball is in her court.
DEAR ABBY: I was always taught that when a girl marries, she drops her middle name and her last name, and then becomes: her first name, maiden name, married name.
My daughter is being married soon, and she tells me that her friends say I am wrong. She says she has been told that the girl's name would be: first name, middle name, married name.
Would you please settle this argument for us? Thank you. -- SHIRLEY B., ROSWELL, N.M.
DEAR SHIRLEY B.: According to "The New Emily Post's Etiquette," by Elizabeth L. Post (Funk and Wagnalls, New York): "A woman's legal name consists of her given name, her maiden name and her husband's name."
However, time marches on, and during the last 15 years or so, many women have chosen to hyphenate their maiden names and married names: given name, middle name, maiden name-married name (Mary Margaret Jones-Smith).
To receive a collection of Abby's most memorable -- and most frequently requested -- poems and essays, send a business-sized, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby's "Keepers," P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)