Category Archives: Aging

Repeat After Me

21 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in AARP, Aging, Alzheimers, Anti-Aging, Assisted Living, Boomers, Dementia, Elders, livability

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For those of us who grew up with vinyl records, we know what it sounds like when a record skips. You hear the same music or lyrics over and over until you move the arm over the scratch. Or you could tape a penny onto the arm to try to create enough pressure for the needle to find it’s way through. You had a favorite song, off a favorite record, by a favorite group. It’s difficult to give it all up.

I hear the same stories over and over when visiting with my step-dad at the Retirement Community for Active Seniors where he resides. I have tried all the hints; validate what they are saying, distract or redirect them to another activity. But within minutes, he repeats the same question, the same story over and over. I have not found a way to tape a penny to the arm that is guiding that needle through the grooves in his mind.

I dearly love this man; he’s the remaining elder of our family. I try to spend time with him regularly. In order to do so, I have learned to set limits. In a typical visit, I hear the same story every 5 minutes. When we sit with his friends, almost all of them do exactly the same thing. I cannot change the course of his life but I try to show up and show some compassion. And, I try to learn from what I am witnessing. I plan to plan for my own inevitable changes.

Repeat after me- Plan on aging. It eventually happens. Normal aging does not condemn you to assisted living, but the majority of the people residing where my step-dad lives have some obvious degree of dementia. Dementia is a broad term and Alzheimer’s is a form of dementia. Alzheimer’s numbers are alarming. An estimated 5.3 million Americans have this disease.

This number continues to grow. In ten years, the number of people 65 + with Alzheimer’s is estimated to reach over 7 million. My friend has a mom that lives in the same Retirement Community as my step-dad. She is moving her mom to another facility, one that can seamlessly transition residents from assisted living to full-time nursing care. Her mom’s health is diminishing. My friend is planning for the next step.

Repeat after me, start thinking about your own future. Repeat after me- plan on aging.

Isn’t She Wonderful

14 Tuesday Apr 2015

Posted by in Aging, Blindness, Grandparenting, Isn't She Wonderful

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Gramps had cataracts. He had them removed when one of my daughters was about 6 months old. He’d met her and held her before his surgery but shortly after the cataracts were removed, we visited him again. He held my baby up in the air and examined her. For the first time, he could see her clearly.

She was his first Great-Grandchild. His eyes filled with tears that silently slid down his cheeks, but his smile stretched from ear to ear. He cradled her close to his heart and said to all of us quietly watching, “Isn’t she wonderful.”
His mother had cataracts too but in her day, surgery was not an option and hers were not removed. She eventually lost her vision. Her death certificate actually states that she was blind.

As a child, Gramps would take me to visit with her and most every time, she would ask him to run an errand. She kept her money stashed away in a small wooden box. She only used $5.00 bills so there was no mistake about the amount.

He would try to refuse her money but he learned long ago to comply. It was important to let her go through the steps of opening the box, feeling the thick stack of bills and carefully taking out a few to give to him.

Her independence was vital to her spirit. Once, when Gramps was off running errands, she heard my stomach growl. She had not lost her hearing. In fact, it seemed like she had super-powers.

I followed the unspoken rule and did not try to change her mind. She told me to go out into the backyard to the hen house and gather some eggs. I did. I brought them in and watched in complete amazement as she found her box of matches, lit the burner on her gas stove, slid the cast iron skillet onto that burner and fried us each an egg.

I knew she was totally blind. But she knew her own world and managed to live in it.

She heard the car before I did. When she told me to wipe the egg off my face, I realized that she really wasn’t blind, she just couldn’t see.

I felt sad leaving her. I think all of us were a little sad. She whispered something to Gramps as they hugged goodbye. I saw a tear slide down his cheek and looked and saw that she had wet cheeks too, but they were both smiling.

I waved goodbye as we drove away but then realized she couldn’t see me waving.

Gramps could tell I was sad. He asked me if I understood what she had said. They only spoke Spanish to each other. I spoke Spanglish. That is what we called our blend of English and Spanish.

He said that she told him I was wonderful and then he said to me; “Isn’t she wonderful?”

On the Fence

22 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by in Aging, Anti-Aging, Boomers, Elders

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My Anti Anti-Aging post got some attention with a little bit of reaction. Seems like a few readers/friends showed that they are on the fence about this process we call aging. Here’s a sample of the wisdom I gratefully received. (Thank you all sincerely!)

For starters, from a friend that I have known since college days – ” I have mixed emotions about aging. I don’t ever really think about it, but lately so many things have happened in my life that I’ve begun to realize that I am not as young as I used to be. I will probably handle aging in a mixed medium. I will continue to fight through exercising, eating right along with a lot of laughing and dancing. On the other hand, I will continue to pursue what will help my body and mind continue to function in this fast-pace world. I hope to age gracefully but full of life.” G.C.

From a close friend and contemporary of my recently-deceased, 78 year-old mom (who was very helpful during mom’s illness) – “My motto is God Bless Pain Pills so I can do most of what I want without minding the pain too much.” P.L.

From my dear friend L.R. (we share a grand) “Unfortunately, I can relate. Fortunately, I agree with the points you make. This aging thing is beginning to take over more of my thoughts. I am now calling it the age of loss. Every week I lose something or someone from my life. I’ve got to start replacing or I’ll be down to nothing soon.”

And from a childhood friend that I have know for over 55 years “I was just thinking about this topic not too long ago…the realization that aging can be beautiful if you will allow it to come through and manage it as part of a natural process.” K.S.

Let the dialogue continue. Please talk to your friends and children about it.

I’ll end with a quote by my favorite doctor. “How did it get so late so soon?” Dr. Seuss.

Anti Anti-Aging

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in AARP, Aging, Anti-Aging, Boomers, Retirement, SilverTsunami

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Look at just about any advertisement anywhere, in print, on-line, on TV and it is trying to sell you something to make you look younger, reverse the look of aging, preserve what youth you may still radiate. Not much for anyone who wants to healthfully embrace aging. And not too much concern or conversation about it either. I remember my own Grandmother’s 80 birthday party. I was about 30. She whispered to me that “you will feel old for a lot longer than you ever felt young, so learn not to fight with it.” She aged beautifully. I myself have merely aged. And she was right about feeling old a lot longer than feeling young, especially if you have been injured or you simply live as long as she did. She was almost 93 when she died. On my 50th birthday, my grown kids and I did a Class 5, white-water river rafting trip on the Cache la Poudre. For my 60th, we are going to celebrate with a more mellow, water-based family weekend. There are two babies in our family that need to ripen more before we ever subject them to that extreme level of adventure. The key word here is ripen. I am just ripening too. I don’t want to fight aging. I want to gradually mellow into what nature intended all along, an older me. The wrinkles show more when I laugh than when I keep a straight face but I would much rather laugh than not. The body parts I accidentally wounded and injured over the past 60 years sometimes remind me very loudly of how many miles they have taken me. We have a truce about how to keep adding more miles. My knee doctor told me it was my choice, I could play really hard for a little while longer or I could walk really well for a whole lot longer. I like walking just fine. I plan to mellow to a ripe old age. I am going for a walk…

Anti Anti-Aging

17 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in AARP, Aging, Aging in Place. Seniors, Anti-Aging, Boomers

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Look at just about any advertisement anywhere, in print, on-line, on TV and it is trying to sell you something to make you look younger, reverse the look of aging, preserve what youth you may still radiate. Not much for anyone who wants to healthfully embrace aging. And not too much concern or conversation about it either. I remember my own Grandmother’s 80 birthday party. I was about 30. She whispered to me that “you will feel old for a lot longer than you ever felt young, so learn not to fight with it.” She aged beautifully. I myself have merely aged. And she was right about feeling old a lot longer than feeling young, especially if you have been injured or you simply live as long as she did. She was almost 93 when she died. On my 50th birthday, my grown kids and I did a Class 5, white-water river rafting trip on the Cache la Poudre. For my 60th,  we are going to celebrate with a more mellow, water-based family weekend. There are two babies in our family that need to ripen more before we ever subject them to that extreme level of adventure. The key word here is ripen. I am just ripening too. I don’t want to fight aging. I want to gradually mellow into what nature intended all along, an older me. The wrinkles show more when I laugh than when I keep a straight  face but I would much rather laugh than not. The body parts I accidentally wounded and injured over the past 60 years sometimes remind me very loudly of how many miles they have taken me. We have a truce about how to keep adding more miles. My knee doctor told me it was my choice, I could play really hard for a little while longer or I could walk really well for a whole lot longer. I like walking just fine. I plan to mellow to a ripe old age. I am going for a walk…

Better for me/ Better for you

08 Monday Dec 2014

Posted by in AARP, Aging, Silver Tsunami

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This is not just about me. It is about you too.

This is what I imagine myself saying to my grown kids.

In March, my mom died. She was 78, just 19 years older than me. (TickTock)

The disaster of her death sent my already challenged family-of-origin spinning from our normal gulf of confusion into an uncharted sea of calamity.

In the end, it was a full-blown, ocean-sized Tsunami. I refuse to let my own children, go through the Hell that I am only now, beginning to escape from.

My maternal grandmother’s last spoken words to me (on her death bed,in her own home) over twenty years ago were about a similar, tragic situation.

She warned me, referring to an enormous rift between my cousins, over their mom’s death debacle; “Do NOT let this happen to your children.”

My grandmother was 100% Danish. Her Scandinavian heart was gentle but these words were spoken with a Viking might that meant she was dead serious.

At ninety, she proclaimed to me that now she felt old, and we made a pact that I would not let her be put into an “Old-Folks Home.” (This was 1995, and that is what she called it.) She and her three siblings had struggled fiercely over what to do with thier own mother.

I have decided to take the the sum of these familial experiences and create an achievable plan that will hopefully avoid some of the painful pitfalls I witnessed.

The place you live as you enter the “golden years” will determine much about how this plays out. My mom lived in an elevated, remote beach house. I had tried for the past five years to get her to move to a more accessible, reasonable space to “age-in-place.”

Her excuses were numerous; she stubbornly resisted and stayed put. So to actively embrace the unavoidable, next phase of my life, I have put a contract on a very small duplex.

It has a ground floor unit and an upper floor unit. It needs work. I plan to fix it up, one level at a time. The ground floor level will be an elder-friendly/gracefully-gray space. The upper-level unit can be rented out to produce income or possibly house a care-taker, if that need eventually arises.

I want to do this when my mind and body are still fully functioning. I saw how swiftly my mom’s life-force was altered and in the end, destroyed by disease. I am scheduled to close the day I turn 59.5. I will continue to share this journey with you. Stay tuned…