Todays Gray Matters Valuing the Wisdom & Purpose In Aging Well

Last night I visited my mother at her assisted living apartment. It was one of those challenging visits where she complained about everything including the fact that she’s not getting physical therapy and her care team won’t let her get up and walk on her own. She’s bed or wheelchair bound, in hospice care, and has fallen many times over ... Read More »

Many years ago when my daughter Tracy, now 26, was in elementary school she loved to do the hidden pictures puzzles in the Highlights for Children magazine. One morning we were doing the puzzle together and we couldn’t find some of the pictures that were supposed to be there. We became more and more frustrated until one of us had ... Read More »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

I’m a boomer and happy to be one. I have to admit I’ve wondered if I should move from my suburban home to a more urban setting where I would have easy access to public transportation, entertainment, an intergenerational population, and more. A detached retina 13 years ago got me started thinking early about how to cope with challenges of ... Read More »