At the end of May, we moved our office. Our new office is now on Main Street in Hays. It is a comfortable location.

In our rush to get set up, we put up some essential artwork just to make the new office look decent. This last Saturday, I was rummaging through the storage room. I realized that there were some photographs from the old office that I had not taken the time to hang. I even thought about not hanging those old, personal photographs.

I pulled them out of the box and I realized it was important to put them up. Let me just go through a few of those with you.

One was a photograph of my grandmother’s brother, Billy Tom. Billy Tom was a pilot entering into World War II. Unfortunately for him he was in Philippines at the time the war broke out, was captured, was one of the involuntary participants in the Bataan Death March, and spent years in prison camps in unspeakable conditions.

He was my grandmother’s older brother. She worshiped him. During the time of his captivity, it was thought by the family that he had died. It was with great excitement and joy that they learned at the end of the war that he was still alive. She had cards from him from his rehabilitation camp in Cuba, where he was sent by the Army to gain weight before he came home. My grandmother told stories of the homecoming. He married his sweetheart. He stayed in the military service.

My grandmother’s heart was again broken when about a year and a half after his return from the prison camp, his experimental jet plane exploded over Langley Airforce Base.

We do a lot of work with Veterans Pension Planning. I hung that photograph on the wall near our VA Specialist’s office. I think it is important to remember the sacrifices made by our veterans. It is important for us to remember that it touched us personally.

Another photograph was of my grandfather. My grandfather (Pop) was the sheriff of Hill County, Texas. He was a big, tall man. After being a sheriff, he became a police officer and subsequently assistant chief of police in a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas. He always had an interesting philosophy as a police officer: If he stopped someone for speeding or some other minor citation, if they would take time to listen to his lecture, he would not write them a ticket. He thought if they would listen rather than just being angry about a ticket, it would go further on keeping them safe.

Pop was an honorable man. He was unassuming, methodical in his thinking and always did what was right. He had one true love, my grandmother. They were married when she was 17 and they spent only one night apart (when Pop was injured in a train wreck) in almost 60 years of marriage. She was his partner and best friend in life. He always treated her with the utmost respect.

I hung Pop’s photograph in one of our conference rooms. Pop brought integrity to everything that he did. It is a great reminder of the integrity that we should all bring to our lives, our dealings, and the people we deal with.

Finally I found my grandmother’s picture. My grandmother was the inspiration for me transitioning to elder care services. Why? She was a caregiver her whole life. She cared for her own mother for over 30 years. She had two sons that were hemophiliacs. She learned how to give IV’s of whole blood into their body in order to keep them alive. She was with them when they both passed. When my grandfather had a stroke and when he broke his neck in a train accident, she nurtured him back to good health, in her home. At one time, she helped care for my sister and me when my parents were going through a very tough time.

When I was called on to be a caregiver for my grandmother, it was the job I took most seriously. Saturday I hung her picture in the main office area of our life care planning team. I want our team, and me, to remember why we do this. I want us to remember that we should treat our clients just like I would want my grandmother to be treated, and as my grandfather would expect.

This weekend of hanging photographs of my grandparents and my great uncle reminded me that it is never too late to remember. It is never too late to fall back on the lessons that you have learned from your family members. Just because you are 63, 73, 83 or even 93 does not mean that you cannot take time to recall the past and let those lessons guide you.

Randy Clinkscales of Clinkscales Elder Law Practice, PA, Hays, Kansas, is an elder care attorney, practicing in western Kansas. To contact him, please send an email to [email protected]. Disclaimer: The information in the column is for general information purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Each case is different and outcomes depend on the fact of each case and the then applicable law. For specific questions, you should contact a qualified attorney.