Monthly Archives for February 2019

Butterflies Bring Comfort in Time of Grieving

Published in the Pawtucket Times on February 18, 2019

Susan feels “joy in her heart and complete happiness” whenever she sees a butterfly. A butterfly came into her life as she mourned her brother’s death in 1990. Before he died, she remembers her brother saying that he would come back as a butterfly. The 62-year-old Pawtucket resident says “he meant it” and she believes he has sent messages to her through butterflies each year for over 30 years.

She believes that butterflies that play in the garden during the late spring and summer every year could possibly be other family members (deceased husband and father) and friends that have since departed. “Most of them knew the story of the butterfly and perhaps they too wished to come back as a beautiful butterfly. I know I would love to come back as a beautiful butterfly if I had the chance,” she says.

Significance of Butterflies Brings Sign from Beyond

Looking back, Susan remembers meeting her future husband, Stephen, after the death of her first husband. She was introduced to him by her close friend, Jackie. As the three dined at an outdoor restaurant in Tiverton, Jackie quickly pointed at a beautiful monarch butterfly sitting on a purple butterfly bush not far from their table. As they gazed at the lovely sight, a text message came into Susan’s cell phone from her next-door neighbor who had sent a photo of a monarch butterfly sitting on a purple butterfly bush in Susan’s backyard in Pawtucket. Both sightings of the monarch butterfly were at the same time of day, both directed to Susan- one in Pawtucket and one in Tiverton.

“I knew what was happening here. My brother, maybe my husband and my Dad (both deceased) were telling me that Stephen is the man for me. That’s why I married him! Well, besides he’s a good man too,” said Susan.

Like Susan, Phyllis Calvey,68, a writer, speaker, educator, and storyteller, sees the significance of the butterfly and how it can bring comfort in one’s darkest hours after the death of a loved one. “It’s a book that people can pass onto someone they know who has lost a loved one,” she says.

In “The Butterfly Club: “Is That You?”’ the Bellingham, Massachusetts writer shares her inspirational true-life stories of how God can, and does, use signs to communicate His presence to “those in need.”

“My book has brought comfort to many who had not yet found the closure they were hoping for. And still, for some, the age-old question persists, “Was it a sign or just a coincidence?” Their underlying need bleeds through – I need more proof! I believe I have found “more proof” in the Butterfly Phenomenon,” she says.

When Calvey began hearing from others who crossed her path about how God used the sign of a butterfly to comfort those grieving the loss of a loved one, she began to explore these occurrences, becoming more aware of their frequency of happening. Calvey began to hear about other “sign stories”– red cardinals, dragon flies, feathers, music, flowers, and even a “divine fortune cookie,” to name a few.

The 136-page nonfiction book of inspirational stories detailing the butterfly phenomenon, brings the age-old debate up for discussion, ‘Are these signs or merely coincidences or an incidental occurrence?’ For Calvey they are not coincidental.

As a caregiver for four parents who were allowed to die in their own homes, there is always “great matters of life and death,” to deal with, says Calvey in writing her book. “Two people in the equation – one wondering if their loved one will be okay, along with the finality of facing if they truly believe there is an afterlife. And one soon to be on the other side wondering the same. Both hoping to somehow be able to communicate that answer. The Butterfly Club is the communication of their answer,” she says.

Calvey recounts a story told her by Jackie, her cousin, who attended the wake of her brother. She had met a man wearing a butterfly pin on his lapel. In conversation, he mentioned that his daughter, AnneMarie, had died of leukemia in 1997. It seems that the 17-year-old had clearly found a way to send a signal to her father that she was okay, through a butterfly. When asked about the lapel pin, he smiled and said, “Welcome to the Butterfly Club,” and then walked away.

“There wasn’t a name for this experience, but in talking to people, you learn just how many people share it,” Calvey said, thus- naming her tome “Welcome to the Butterfly Club.”

Calvey herself had shared in a butterfly encounter many years before she wrote The Butterfly Club when Danny, an 18 year-old outgoing, charismatic, loved by everyone, boy from her church community was killed by a hit-and-run driver after leaving for college only three weeks earlier. “His mother was at a point where she felt she couldn’t bear to go on,” Calvey explained. “She took a walk in the woods and sat on a fallen log wanting to bury herself in her grief, when a monarch butterfly alighted on a small stick near her feet. Danny’s mother bent down to pick it up and sensed that the butterfly would not fly away. She looked at it in her hands and described this feeling to me, that it was as if her son were speaking the words to her himself, “Mom, it’s okay. I’m alright.” “The transformation I saw in her and the healing that followed was no less than miraculous,” Calvey said. “Now, when people ask her if they could have real proof that a butterfly can be a sign from God or a loved one, she tells them people like Nancy are all the real proof I need!”

Fortune Cookies Bring Messages, Too

At a Cranston book signing event, Calvey told this writer a story from her book, describing a divine sign that came through a message from a fortune cookie, delivered in perfect timing, one that brought comfort to her and was an “undeniable message” from her deceased father that he “was okay, and with God.”

As her father was dying Calvey sensed his fear of dying and the unknown and sought to comfort him by saying “you do know that you are going to heaven.” She stressed that he had lived his whole life as an example of the Good Samaritan in the parable that Jesus told. Calling him a “Good Samaritan” she recounted all the people throughout his life that he had helped. The day after he died, Chinese food was brought in and Calvey’s mother opened a fortune cookie, receiving this message, “The Good Samaritan did not get his name through good intentions.” “The sign of the fortune cookie could not have been a more perfect communication to deliver the message to our family that our father was indeed in heaven,” Calvey explained.

Calvey has heard from readers from all over the world who found comfort in reading her book and closure by knowing a loved one can still communicate through signs across the veil by reading her book. Their shared experience is the key for those who haven’t seen their sign as of yet and, perhaps will help them learn how to recognize their own encounter.

“A sign is undeniable. It’s making the connection of the perfect timing of a loved one delivering a message to you, that constitutes the difference,” adds Calvey. “But through the years, I’ve found it never works to ask God for a sign. Signs come to you only in God’s perfect timing,” she says.

Calvey’s book details stories of people who experience universal signs. “They don’t know they are part of a club,” she says. “But they are.”

Readers can share their views or tell their own “sign story” or purchase, “The Butterfly Club: “Is That You?”’ by going to http://www.butterflyclubbook.com.

To order, go to pcalvey@hotmail.com. Or call (617) 869-2576.

Advertisement

McKee to Unveil Updated State Alzheimer’s Plan

Published in Woonsocket Call on February 10, 2019

Seven months ago with the hiring of Michael Splaine and Kate Gordon of Splaine Consulting, a nationally recognized health policy firm that has provided content matter expertise to over two dozen state Alzheimer’s plans, Lt. Governor Daniel J. McKee, who serves as chair of the state’s Long-Term Care Coordinating Council, rolled up his sleeves to begin his legislative charge to update the 2013 state Alzheimer’s plan.

The hiring of the Columbia, Maryland-based consultants was made possible by two grants totaling $30,000 given by the Tufts Health Plan Foundation and Rhode Island Foundation. When announcing the successful fundraising effort to raise those monies, McKee observed, “Each day, we make great strides in expanding clinical trials and innovating treatments. Over the last few years alone, the local landscape of prevention and treatment has changed dramatically and positively.”

“The updated plan will be an invaluable tool for local leaders, researchers, physicians, advocates and families as we work together to build the momentum in the fight against Alzheimer’s,” says McKee, noting that it is one of the most challenging public health issues facing Rhode Island today. “With the number of affected Rhode Islanders projected to rise to 27,000 by 2025, elected leaders, advocates, caregivers, clinicians and researchers must come together to take unified, targeted action,” he says.

The compilation of the plan is the result of collaboration between McKee, the Alzheimer’s Association Rhode Island Chapter and the state’s Division of Elderly Affairs (DEA). In 2012, the General Assembly directed the Long-Term Care Coordinating Council to serve as the organizational umbrella for a work group that would oversee the development of the plan. In 2013, the state’s five-year Alzheimer’s plan was published. Last year, efforts to update it began.

Last July under the leadership of McKee, Splaine and Gordon worked closely with the Alzheimer’s Association Rhode Island Chapter, DEA, researchers, advocates, clinicians and caregivers sitting on the Lieutenant Governor’s Executive Board on Alzheimer’s,to develop a community-focused strategy for the 2019 State Plan on Alzheimer’s disease and Related Disorders. Over a six-week period, that group held 23 town hall meetings, conducted 45 expert interviews and surveyed (in both England and Spanish) more than Rhode Islanders impacted by Alzheimer’s.

The Official Release…

On Feb. 26 at a press conference in the State Library at 3:30 p.m., McKee will join Sen. Cynthia A. Coyne (D-Barrington) to officially unveil the plan, Rhode Island’s official roadmap to combat the growing Alzheimer’s epidemic. Coyne will announce the introduction of a Senate resolution on behalf of McKee to officially adopt the plan. (House staff are still reviewing the updated plan. There is no House sponsor at this time)

Coyne’s resolution follows her introduction of legislation to create a Rhode Island program to address Alzheimer’s disease within the Department of Health (DOH). The bill would also create an advisory panel to review and make recommendations to improve the state policies, research and care.

Once the Rhode Island General Assembly approves the plan, the Long-Term Care Coordinating Council’s executive board will seek legislative and regulatory changes to carry out its bold set of recommendations for improving supports to those afflicted by Alzheimer’s and other dementias. More than 30 recommendations are detailed in the 35-page plan, which calls for the implementation of three main recommendations.
In order to keep the plan from sitting on a dusty bureaucrat’s bookshelf, the first recommendation calls for the creation of one director-level position within DOH to assist in the coordination of its recommendations. The second urges promoting Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia research opportunities of all types, including federal opportunities to a broad group of Ocean State researchers. Finally, the third calls for the inclusion of brain health in existing publicly-funded promotion and chronic disease management activities.
Many of the recommendation can be easily implemented without additional state funding or legislative approval, says McKee. But, for those that may require state funding, he plans to make it a priority to lobby for those monies.

Taking a Close Look

Maureen Maigret, co-chair, state’s Long-Term Care Coordinating Council, says, “It is terrific to have the plan update completed as it provides direction to our state government leaders and other persons in key positions to proceed with implementation of the recommendations, which can have such far-reaching impacts on the many thousands of individuals with neuro-cognitive conditions and their dedicated caregivers, both those who are unpaid and those in the paid work force.”

Maigret notes that the updated plan’s recommendations also call for assisting family caregivers who provide the vast majority of care for persons with Alzheimer’s and related dementias, expanding subsidies for home and community care services offered by the state’s Division of Elderly Affairs, and making family caregiver support services part of the Medicaid program.

According to Maigret, one issue not mentioned in the updated plan is the need for increasing state funding for the DEA’s respite care program, which has a waiting list. “This is an important program that gives caregivers small subsidies to purchase ‘care breaks.’ Our Aging in Community Subcommittee and the AARP and Senior Agenda Coalition will all be advocating to restore state funds to this program (in the upcoming legislative session),” she says.

“The Alzheimer’s State Plan is a thorough blueprint to address the growing Alzheimer’s crisis by creating an infrastructure and accountability that will help build dementia-capable programs,” said AARP Rhode Island State Director Kathleen Connell. “We applaud the work that has gone into the report and the continuing efforts to address Rhode Island’s growing needs. We are especially encouraged to see that the plan supports community education about caregiver health and caregiver rights under the CARE Act, which is legislation that AARP championed in the General Assembly. AARP also encourages and supports age-friendly communities, which includes dementia-friendly awareness and resources so that people of all abilities can thrive as they age.”

Sen. Coyne added, “Alzheimer’s impacts tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders, and we need a coordinated strategy to improve education among the public and training for providers, and to promote research opportunities. This plan provides a strategic framework for moving forward to bring positive policy change where it is needed.”

See you at the press conference.

For details about the press conference and the Alzheimer’s State Plan, contact Andrea Palagi, Communications Director, Office of Lt. governor Daniel J. Mckee at
Andrea.Palagi@ltgov.ri.gov.

House Bill to Expand, Strengthen Social Security

Published in Woosocket Call on February 3, 2019

With the 116th Congress kicking off on January 3, 2019 and the Democrats seizing control of the House, it did not take long for a bill to emerge that would strengthen and expand the nation’s Social Security program. Seven years ago, when U.S. Congressman John Larson (D-CT) first introduced the Social Security 2100 Act during the 113th Congress, the GOP controlled Congress blocked a fair hearing and vote. Now, with a Democratic majority in the House Larson’s Social Security proposal will finally get a thorough review as Democrats take control of the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor. These committees have oversight of Social Security.

Larson chose to throw the bill into legislative hopper on the 137th anniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birth, who signed Social Security into law in 1935.

On January 30, 2019, Larson, recently appointed to chair of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on Social Security, introduced H.R.860, the Social Security Act 2100 Act, with over 202 House Democrats cosponsors (including Rhode Island Representatives David N. Cicilline and James R. Langevin), to ensure the retirement security of working Americans for another century.

Passage of the Social Security 2100 Act only requires a simple majority vote of 218 lawmakers. With 235 Democratic lawmakers sitting in this chamber, it is expected to pass. But, with the Senate-controlled by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and his GOP caucus, it will be difficult for Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to see their companion measure make it to the Senate floor for a vote.

H.R. 860’s eight provisions expand benefits for 62 million Social Security beneficiaries. It would provide an across-the-board benefit increase for current and new beneficiaries that is the equivalent of 2 percent of the average benefit. It also calls for an improved cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), through adopting a CPI-E formula, that takes into account the true costs (include health care expenses) incurred by seniors and a stronger minimum benefit set at 25 percent above the poverty line, tied to their wage levels to ensure that the minimum benefit does not fall behind. Finally, the bill would ensure that any increase in benefits from the bill do not result in a reduction in SSI benefits or loss of eligibility for Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program. Finally, 12 million Social Security recipients will receive a tax cut through the eliminating the tax on their benefits.

Increasing the Financial Solvency of Social Security

According to an independent analysis of the Social Security’s Office of the Chief Actuary, H.R. 860 proposal would also strengthen and protect the Trust Funds by 75 years.

H.R. 860 would have wealthy individuals pay the same rate as everyone else. Presently, payroll taxes are not collected on wages over $132,900.
Larson’s legislation would apply the payroll tax to wages of $400,000, affecting the top 0.4% of wage earners. The bill gradually phases in an increase in the pay roll contribution rate beginning in 2020, of 50 cents per week, so that by 2043 workers and employers would pay 7.4 percent instead of 6.2 percent. Finally, the bill’s provisions would combine the Old-Age and Survivors, called Social Security, and the Disability Insurance trust funds into one Social Security Trust Fund, to ensure that all benefits will be paid.

“Social Security is a promise that after a lifetime of hard work, you should be able to retire with dignity and economic security. It’s critical that Congress preserve and strengthen this promise for years to come,” said Cicilline, who serves as Chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, representing Rhode Island’s 1st congressional district.

Larson, recently appointed chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, noted, “With 10,000 baby boomers becoming eligible for Social Security every day, the time to act is now. The Social Security 2100 Act will provide economic security not just for today’s seniors but for future generations too,” said Larson, as the bill was thrown into the legislative hopper.”

There have not been any significant adjustments to Social Security since 1983, when Tip O’Neill was Speaker and Ronald Reagan was President, said Larson. “It’s time for Congress and the President to come together again, just like Speaker O’Neill and President Reagan did to make this a reality, he said.

“For years, fiscal hawks have told us that the only way to ‘save’ Social Security is to cut benefits for future retirees. Congressman Larson’s bill is a resounding rebuke to those claims. The Social Security Act 2100 keeps the program financially sound for most of this century while boosting benefits for millions of beneficiaries,” said Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Richtman says, “Congressman Larson has promised that, for the first time, this legislation will receive thorough consideration in the U.S. House, including hearings with testimony from experts and the public. We applaud him for his vision, persistence, and advocacy on behalf of America’s current and future retirees in moving this bill forward.”

Today, more than 222,000 Rhode Islanders receive Social Security benefits today. It is the most important retirement income for 4 out of 5 seniors and provides financial protections to disabled workers and families who have lost a breadwinner.

For decades, GOP lawmakers pushed its Social Security reforms by privatization, raising the retirement eligibility age and imposing stingier COLA formulas. But, national poll after poll, across party lines and age groups, revealed the public’s strong support for the nation’s retirement program.

Washington Insiders expect Larson’s Social Security bill to pass the House. While GOP Senate leadership keeps the companion measure at arms-length, the upcoming 2020 elections may well grease the legislative wheels for passage. Over 20 Republican Senate, whose seats are at serious risk, may well vote for passage with Democratic Senators.
Stay tuned…