Twice in the past two years I've taken a hard fall on ice: once at night walking on a dimly-lit sidewalk and another time on black ice in broad daylight. The first time no one was around. The second time I was in a public parking lot. My first act after the fall—before getting up—was to look around to see if anyone had observed my embarrassing fall.
It’s an odd year for my family. My parents, 88 and 89, have lived rich and full lives, and my husband, children and I have shared holidays large and small with them.
But this year they are confined to rooms in a nursing home.
Books
Aging Together
Dementia, Friendship, and Flourishing Communities
by Susan H. and John T. McFadden
No Act of Love Is Ever Wasted
The Spirituality of Caring for Persons with Dementia
By Jane Marie Thibault and Richard L. Morgan
A Loving Approach to Dementia Care
Making Meaningful Connections with the Person Who Has Alzheimer’s Disease or Other Dementia or Memory Loss
Older people take us by surprise. All of a sudden one day, they are us. This happened to me recently. Having been retired four years, I was asked to meet with a class of seminary students because, I was told, I would be a real, live sample of an older person. I hadn't sought the honor.
The language of vocation confirms that at no time in our lives are we
exempt from responsibility for others. We never stop being called
to share in the creative and redemptive activity of God through lives
of discipleship.
Taking Retirement: A Beginner's Diary, by Carl H. Klaus
Are you old?” a little boy asked as he popped up in the pool beside me. Hoping that his vision merely had been blurred by the spray and not wanting to admit my age, I tossed off his question by replying, “I didn’t think my backstroke was that bad.” He paddled away muttering, “You must be crazy.”
As a Presbyterian pastor, my husband, Bob, had always been sympathetic when a parishioner became trapped by dementia. His views on dealing with dementia had been shaped by his father, a man of deep Christian faith and an active layman.
Amid their “slow but general retreat” this decade in terms of financial health and membership, the oldline Protestant churches are especially hampered by the aging of their memberships, a new study says.
