 |
|
|
|||||
When my mom was dying, hospice came daily and stayed for about ninety minutes. They answered questions, checked what needed to be checked, and did what good professionals do: They made a brutal situation feel slightly less impossible. And then they left. Ninety minutes go fast when you are watching your mother decline. The rest of the day stretches out in a way that does not feel like time so much as exposure. Every sound becomes a data point. Every small change feels like a decision you did not train for. Her breathing sounds strange. What do we do? How often should we turn her to avoid bedsores? What is the diaper situation, exactly? That was the gap, the long, quiet stretch between professional help. In those hours, what you want most is not a miracle. It is simply someone to ask. AI ENTERED MY LIFE IN A WAY I NEVER EXPECTED AI found its way into my life when I least expected it. Not as a replacement for care or love, and not as a shortcut around grief. It was a tool that did not get tired. A place to put the questions you are embarrassed to ask. It was a way to stop spiraling long enough to make the next decision. Before we reached hospice, my moms illness had already become a full-time information problem. Over the last few years of her life, her heart and kidney disease worsened, and the complexity multiplied with it. There were doctors and specialists, tests, lab results, scans, phone calls, and constant medication changes. The burden of continuity fell on us, and it was easy to feel like we were one detail away from missing something important. I kept feeling disappointed that I was not managing the data better. The dates. The times. The medication lists. When tools like ChatGPT took a leap forward, I suddenly had something I did not have before: A resource that could help me understand what I was looking at and organize what I could not hold in my head. In practice, it was not one magical capability. Depending on the day, AI played different roles: assistant, organizer, translator, sometimes just a calm voice to complain to that could talk back. I built multiple custom GPTs with specific jobs. One focused on medications. One helped me draft clear messages to doctors. One existed for the dumb questions, the ones you hesitate to ask because you think you should already know. Another served as a simple health profile, a place to store key details so I could reorient myself when I was exhausted. It might sound like overkill until you have lived long enough inside the healthcare system to realize how inconsistent it can be. People change. Portals change. Instructions change. That little AI team was consistent. It was there at any hour when my brain was foggy, and I needed to turn a messy thought into clear words. It even became emotional support in a way I did not anticipate. I built something like a caregiver therapist, somewhere I could say what I was feeling, including guilt, and got feedback that, even though I knew it was an algorithm, still brought real solace. AI WAS NOT PERFECT This is the part people do not like to say out loud. AI gave wrong information sometimes. It forgot a medication from a spreadsheet. It dropped something from a list. It did not remember a doctor when I asked. If you use these tools in caregiving, you must double-check, especially with medication, reminders, and timing. You must treat it like a friend who knows a lot but can be flaky. Still, even with those limitations, the difference was profound. This was never about delegating love. It was about delegating the parts of the experience that did not need to consume the last of my cognitive energy. When my mother finally passed, the AI journey took another turn. It became a project manager for funeral arrangements and the memorial service. It helped me think through practical details, such as food for 30 people and what flowers might cost. It helped me craft a eulogy by taking a messy voice memo, my unstructured stories, and the tone I wanted, and shaping it into an arc in my voice at a time when I could not simply turn on my best writer brain. In some ways, the most startling part is that I have a control group. My father passed away about three to three and a half years ago, right before the age of AI. The difference between then and now has been night and day. With my mother, having these tools did not make it easy in the way people mean when they say easy. It made it more dignified for everyone, including her. WHAT CHANGED WAS NOT GRIEF. IT WAS THE OVERWHELM Dignity is not the absence of pain or a tidy emotional arc. Dignity is being able to show up without drowning in chaos. It is being able to look your mother in the eye and be present, instead of being trapped inside your own spinning mind, trying to remember whether you wrote down the one thing that could change everything. In the end, the most important thing AI gave me was not an answer. It gave me room. Room to think, to breathe, to steady myself, to stay with my mother instead of disappearing into logistics and fear. Grief will always demand something from you. It demands tears, memory, love, and the kind of courage that does not feel like courage while you are living it. But it also demands paperwork, phone calls, deadlines, and decisions made on days when you can barely form a sentence. AI did not carry the grief. It carried some of the weight around it, so I could carry her, and then carry myself, with a little more dignity. Edwin Endlich is president of the National Alliance for Financial Literacy and Inclusion and chief marketing officer at Wysh.
Category:
E-Commerce
Paramount Skydance is taking another step in its hostile takeover bid of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying Monday that it will name its own slate of directors before the next shareholder meeting of the Hollywood studio. Paramount also filed a suit in Delaware Chancery Court seeking to compel Warner Bros. to disclose to shareholders how it values its bid and the competing offer from Netflix. Warner Bros. is in the middle of a bidding war between Paramount and Netflix. Warners leadership has repeatedly rebuffed overtures from Skydance-owned Paramount and urged shareholders to back the sale of its streaming and studio business to Netflix for $72 billion. Paramount, meanwhile, has made efforts to sweeten its $77.9 billion hostile offer for the entire company. Last week, Warner Bros. Discovery said its board determined Paramounts offer is not in the best interests of the company or its shareholders. It again recommended shareholders support the Netflix deal. David Ellison, the chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance, said Monday that it’s committed to seeing through its tender offer. We do not undertake any of these actions lightly,” he said in a letter to shareholders of Warner Bros. Warner Bros. has yet to schedule its annual meeting or a special meeting to consider the Netflix offer, and Paramount did not name any potential candidates for the board. Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Muhammad Ali once joked that he should be a postage stamp because thats the only way Ill ever get licked. Now, the three-time heavyweight champion’s quip is becoming reality. Widely regarded as the most famous and influential boxer of all time, and a cultural force who fused athletic brilliance with political conviction and showmanship, Ali is being honored for the first time with a commemorative U.S. postage stamp. As sort of the guardian of his legacy, Im thrilled. Im excited. Im ecstatic, Lonnie Ali, the champ’s wife of nearly 30 years, told The Associated Press. Because people, every time they look at that stamp, they will remember him. And he will be in the forefront of their consciousness. And, for me, that’s a thrill. This image released by the United States Postal Service shows a commemorative Muhammad Ali stamp featuring a 1974 Associated Press photo of Ali. [Photo: United States Postal Service via AP] A fighter in the ring and compassionate in life Muhammad Ali died in 2016 at the age of 74 after living with Parkinson’s disease for more than three decades. During his lifetime and posthumously, the man known as The Greatest has received numerous awards, including an Olympic gold medal in 1960, the United Nations Messenger of Peace award in 1998 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. Having his face on a stamp, Lonnie Ali said, has a particular significance because it’s a chance to highlight his mission of spreading compassion and his ability to connect with people. He did it one person at a time, she said. And that’s such a lovely way to connect with people, to send them a letter and to use this stamp to reinforce the messaging in that life of connection. Stamp to be publicly unveiled A first-day-of-issue ceremony for the Muhammad Ali Forever Stamp is planned for Thursday in Louisville, Kentucky, the birthplace of the famed boxer and home to the Muhammad Ali Center, which showcases his life and legacy. That’s when people can buy Muhammad Ali Forever Stamps featuring a black-and-white Associated Press photo from 1974 of Ali in his famous boxing pose. Each sheet of 20 stamps also features a photo of Ali posing in a pinstripe suit, a recognition of his work as an activist and humanitarian. Twenty-two million stamps have been printed. Once they sell out, they won’t be reprinted, U.S. Postal Service officials said. The stamps are expected to generate a lot of interest from collectors and noncollectors. Because they’re Forever Stamps, the First-Class Mail postage will always remain valid, which Lonnie Ali calls an ultimate tribute. This is going to be a Forever Stamp from the post office, she said. It’s just one of those things that will be part of his legacy, and it will be one of the shining stars of his legacy, getting this stamp. Creating a historic stamp Lisa Bobb-Semple, the USPS director of stamp services, said the idea for a Muhammad Ali stamp first came about shortly after his death almost a decade ago. But the process of developing a stamp is a long one. The USPS requires people who appear on stamps to be dead for at least three years, with the exception of presidents. As the USPS was working behind the scenes on a stamp, a friend of Ali helped to launch the #GetTheChampAStamp campaign, which sparked public interest in the idea. We are really excited that the stars were able to align that allowed us to bring the stamp to fruition, said Bobb-Semple, who initially had to keep the planned Ali stamp secret until it was official. Its one that weve always wanted to bring to the market. Members of the Citizen Stamps Advisory Committee, appointed by the postmaster general, are responsible for selecting who and what appears on stamps. Each quarter, they meet with Bobb-Semple and her team to review suggestions submitted by the public. There are usually about 20 to 25 commemorative stamp issues each year. Once a stamp idea is selected, Bobb-Semple and her team work with one of several art directors to design the postage. It then goes through a lengthy final approval process, including a rigorous review by the USPS legal staff, before it can be issued to the public. Antonio Alcalá, art director and designer of the Muhammad Ali stamp, said hundreds of images were reviewed before the final choices were narrowed to a few. Finally, the AP image, taken by an unnamed photographer, was chosen. It shows Ali in his prime, posing with boxing gloves and looking straight into the camera. Alcalá said there’s a story behind every USPS stamp. Postage stamps are miniature works of art designed to reflect the American experience, highlight heroes, history, milestones, achievements and natural wonders of America, he said. The Muhammad Ali stamps are a great example of that. A candid figure on war, civil rights and religion Beyond the boxing ring, Ali was outspoken about his beliefs when many Black Americans were still fighting to be heard. Born Cassius Clay Jr., Ali changed his name after converting to Islam in the 1960s and spoke openly about race, religion and war. In 1967, he refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army, citing his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. That stance cost Ali his heavyweight championship title and barred him from boxing for more than three years. Convicted of draft evasion, he was sentenced to five years in prison but remained free while appealing the case. The conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1971, further cementing his prominence as a worldwide figure. Later in life, Ali emerged as a global humanitarian and used his fame to promote peace, religious understanding and charitable causes, even as Parkinsons disease limited his speech and movement. Ali’s message during a time of strife The commemorative postage stamp comes at a time of political division in the U.S. and the world. Lonnie Ali said if her husband were alive today, he’d probably block a lot of this out and continue to be a compassionate person who connects with people every day. That approach, she said, is especially important now. We have to mobilize Muhammads life and sort of engage in the same kinds of acts of kindness an compassion that he did every day, she said. Susan Haigh, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||