My daughter-in-law laughed as she gave me a $2 scratch-off for my 73rd birthday. Ten months later, my own son shoved a senior living brochure in front of me and said, “We already picked your room.” They thought I was too old to fight back. They had no idea what I had been hiding.

“I thought it was funny.

I didn’t think about how it sounded.”

I thought about the cake I’d baked myself and the grandchildren laughing because they were following their parents.

“Sometimes a joke tells the person hearing it exactly how little you value them,” I said.

She looked embarrassed.

“I know that now.”

I wanted to believe her.

I also knew a single admission was not the same as a changed habit.