When parents live into their 90s, they are very much alive as they observe, with deep sadness, the many friends and family members who pass on ahead of them. Moreover, there comes a time in the aging adult caregiving process when elderly parents can no longer travel, so an adult child takes over the responsibility of connecting … Continue reading
Filed under death …
Funerals, Memorial Services, Cocktail Parties & Other Ways to Say Goodbye
I’ve attended two farewell cocktail parties in the past two years, both scheduled as a substitute for aging parent funerals. Another friend invited everyone to a ballgame to celebrate a parent’s life with a memorial picnic afterward. And most recently I attended an engaging theatre production to honor a deceased friend. While some of these … Continue reading
Famed Clinicians: Prepared but Not Ready for Death
When we think about dying, about the end of our lives, we may look to the experts for guidance — to those people who have long experience with various aspects of aging and the medical issues that complicate the process of dying. We assume that these people have their own end of life details all worked … Continue reading
Oliver Sacks’ Perspective on the End of His Life
The direction of every life can change in a moment. We learn this as we age and also as we support elder parents. In his February 19, 2015, New York Times’ opinion piece, My Own Life, Dr. Oliver Sacks illustrates how fast things can change. If you missed his article, it’s a stirring description of what it’s like to … Continue reading
Steven Colbert’s Amazing Remembrance of Mom
Stephen Colbert took a few minutes, at the beginning of his June 19, 2013 program, share and remember his mother, Lorna, who died last week in her nineties. Well worth watching. The video is courtesy of Hulu via Upworthy.
Why is Hospice Still A Tough Call–Even for People Who Know?
When a person is approaching the end of life, we can find no easy answers, no solution that fits every person’s or family’s situation, even when they know a lot about the options available to them. To illustrate this you will want to read For Hospice Pioneer, Still a Tough Call, by Paula Span at … Continue reading
Longer Old Age but Lower Quality Near the End?
A few days ago I added a must read link to Michael Wolff’s New York Magazine article, A Life Worth Ending. It’s an eye-opening piece, detailing long drawn-out decline of his mother. Check it out — it really is a must read. For our parents there are no easy end-of-life answers. Those of us with … Continue reading
Goodbye, Jessie: A Remembrance
My friend Jessie died about a month ago. Though I had not chatted with her for over three years, I counted her as a much-loved friend and colleague. I met Jessie in August 1984 when she dropped into my second grade classroom to introduce herself. I was new at the school, and she was a … Continue reading
Our Chance of Dying in Intensive Care – Peter Saul TED Talk
Australian intensive care physician, Peter Saul, recently presented a TED Talk about the increased chance of dying in intensive care in the 21st Century. He explains that one ten people will die in intensive care, but in the United States it is one in five and in Miami, three out of five. People who are … Continue reading
The Over-Medicalization of Aging
At what point, as we age, do we become accepting of aches and pains –aging that is — and stop thinking about rushing to a physician all of the time? How do we decide whether or not to fix a problem if it has more to do with the later years of our life than … Continue reading
Eleanor Clift Writes About Hospice
Journalist Eleanor Clift has written a superb article in the August 2011 publication Health Affairs about the hospice experience of her husband, journalist Tony Brazaitis, in the months before he died of cancer. It’s freely available and filled with astute observations and information — a good read for anyone, but especially for families who may have to … Continue reading
Hospice Helps When a Parent With Dementia is Dying
Sometimes acquaintances describe how a hospice program entered the lives of an aging parent during the last week or even in the last few days of life. My husband and I are aware of just how much hospice offered to our family during the four months before his mother died. However, we have spoken with people — who … Continue reading
Remembrances: Keeping Memories Alive
How can we remember a loved one and all of the cherished memories? In other blog posts I’ve described how my family went about writing remembrances and obituaries, and I’ve seen a number of wonderful media presentations sharing pictures, video, and spoken tributes. One good friend hosted a hymn-sing remembrance, an evening of friends singing and … Continue reading
End-of-Life Conversations
Over at the Inside Aging Parent blog, Carol recently posted Conversations About End of Life with a link to a BlogTalk radio program interviewing author Kelsey Collins (check out Collin’s videos presentations). I have just listened to the program so I recommend checking out Carol’s post and the radio interview. In her book Exit Strategy: Leaving this Life with … Continue reading
As Our Parents Age So Do We 