Todays Gray Matters Valuing the Wisdom & Purpose In Aging Well

We’re in the middle of the winter holiday season. Retailers are hoping to sell you a lot of things, television is showing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and other Christmas specials, the mailbox is full of catalogs proclaiming holiday deals. It seems there are a lot of things we’re supposed to do: be happy, shop, eat, get ... Read More »

In Knocking on Heaven’s Door Katy Butler writes, “Once upon a time we knew how to die. We knew how to sit at a deathbed. We knew how to die and how to sit because we saw people we loved die all through infancy, childhood, youth, middle age, and old age: deaths we could not make painless, deaths no machine ... Read More »

Talk of Thanksgiving, food, and family swirls around me. My daughters are coming home, a meal is planned, and we’re looking forward to each other’s company. None of us knows what really to expect, however. Two weeks ago we were led to believe that my mother would no longer be with us by Thanksgiving. We all gathered and said our ... Read More »

Sometimes people in retirement communities need more help than their care package provides. People in independent living apartments enjoy living “on their own” but could perhaps use help with laundry or basic household tasks. Residents of an assisted living facility may want to remain in their familiar apartments even when they become unable to take care of themselves and could ... Read More »

Ageism is rampant in American society. Many of us are guilty of perpetuating it whether intentional or not. Do we see it and not challenge it? Are we actively biased against older people, assuming them to be less sharp mentally, less attractive to the workplace? Tell us where and how you witness ageism. Fortunately, some places in America actually value ... Read More »

In A Long Bright Future Laura Carstensen notes that a century ago people only had about a two week period of infirmity before they died, usually at home. Now it’s more common for people to have roughly a two year period of infirmity and to die in a hospital. People thus require more medical care and cost the insurance (including ... Read More »

This has been a big week for me. We left caring for the elderly relatives to our siblings and went to Nashville to celebrate 30 years of marriage and my husband’s 60th birthday. What a fantastic trip. We went to the Grand Ol’ Opry, a lifelong dream for me. We went to more bars and honkytonks than a non-drinking woman ... Read More »

In A Long Bright Future Laura Carstensen talks about rewriting the story of aging, making age a thing of value and purpose rather than something to be avoided. We all tell ourselves stories, and those stories shape our future behavior. “I don’t want to get old.” “Old is a matter of how you feel.” “I’ll never be an old lady. ... Read More »

When you were a kid, did you ever listen to adults talk about how they would most like to die? I remember hearing over and over that my grandparents, aunts, and uncles would like to “die in my sleep.” Nobody talked about wanting to be rushed to the hospital where they might have IV’s, breathing tubes, feeding tubes, and other ... Read More »

Maybe I’m nuts (my family would say definitely), but when I was younger I thought it would be fun to be a hermit. Perhaps it would be nice to live like Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond. I’d just commune with nature, float through life in sync with the universe but all by myself. I’ve discovered through the years, however, ... Read More »