Category: The Aging Journal
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Techy Farewell
I’m one of the “techy” volunteers in my senior community, helping harness technology to make our lives better. I proudly identify as one of the founders of our resident website. A decade ago, we replaced paper reminders of events, menus and news with an online presence. Though the website was…
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Sharing…a new Aging Blog
A neighbor and friend in the retirement community in which we both live has recently begun her own blog series, aptly called the “Continuing Journey.” Consider her message that “Our memories of the past are in conversation with our present realities. The memorist knows this so well. What and how…
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Death. At What Age?
This past year has been one in which I have received multiple medical diagnoses, none are life-ending but they are chronic, debilitating and typical in the elderly. Per this Hippocrates quotation: Old people have fewer diseases than the young, but their diseases never leave them. Ever resourceful, scientists have approached…
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Impermanence
When we were young, it seemed that important things like parents, schools and churches changed very slowly. We were trained by the Silent Generation of the 1950s to avoid trying to change any of them. Even as grown children, we were advised that parents couldn’t be changed, that those who…
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Letting Go: Medical Care
A 90-year old friend engaged me in a conversation the other evening about treatment for her recently diagnosed anemia. She knew I was dealing with iron deficiency anemia also and thought we could at least commiserate. We shared that our primary care physicians had freaked out at the blood test…
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Our Health System is Failing the Aging Too
My generation is living longer than old folks used to live. In 2024, the average death age will be 79. Compare that to the average death age in 1940 of 62. Those 17 years of additional life have major impact on all of us, not just the elderly, as headlines…
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Social isolation, virtual connection, and communication
COVID’s sudden and dramatic threat to our lives and well-being made social isolation and virtual connections a no-brainer. During the pandemic’s height, both meals and mail were delivered to the doors of our senior community by masked staff. Visiting in person was thoroughly discouraged, and our Community Center closed to…
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Letting go: Toenail Cutting
Seriously. Gross, right? Like other anatomic wonders, toenails age. They get thick, ridged, cracked and brittle. The toes to which they are attached get bunions, hammertoes, arthritis. Meanwhile, the aging body loses flexibility and hand strength. Eventually, sigh, bending over to cut toenails becomes a bad idea, too—elders have been…
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Letting go of Family Holidays
For those of us around 80 years of age (and up), holidays are often largely “family-free.” A non-scientific series of conversations with my senior community friends revealed that many will not see their children, grandchildren or other family during this Christmas holiday. That’s hard, but not surprising. In this college-educated…
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Holding Onto Joy
A couple of months ago, I really looked at our 20-year old dinner plates. The lovely purple iris on the old Corelle plates had mostly faded away, with just a touch of the green leaf showing. The plate was colorless, bland and blah–and I am well past my purple phase.…
Uncharted Waters 