“Do old men have dreams?” asked Jeanette as she watched her 88 year old father through the window of the cottage they rented for a week in the Rocky Mountains. Bill Richards was standing alone on the deck looking across a pristine aqua-marine lake after a rainstorm. It was dusk and a beautiful rainbow arched […]
Action, fantasy, westerns, or any movie including a hero and a villain will usually peek my interest. The Marvel films captured my imagination’s child-like side. The side which wants to believe in the ultimate triumph of good through the feats of a few broken yet resilient individuals who refuse to admit defeat for no other […]
As I walked through the lobby of the assisted living facility, I saw him again – the elderly gentleman whom I had greeted three hours earlier. Had he been there all morning? I wondered. I was on patient rounds in the building that day, visiting the residents that staff had identified as needing to be […]
According to Statistics Canada, the years between 2010 and 2031 will see an accelerated rate in the aging population since this is the period when all baby boomers will have turned sixty-five. By the year 2036, between twenty-three per cent and twenty-five percent of the population will comprise of seniors aged sixty-five and over. The […]
There’s a great line in the book: Ten Dates Every Catholic Should Know, by Diane Moczar. In writing about the downfall of Rome, she quotes an historian’s description of the Roman Empire before its demise: “a terrifying sluggishness of the whole population.” For me, this phrase denotes aimlessness, a lack of motivation and initiative, a […]
During Mother’s last few months, conversations were extremely difficult to follow because her mind seamlessly switched from one decade to another. Isaac Singer writes, “Sometimes she’d tangle one story with another and couldn’t find her way out” (In My Father’s Court). Within one statement, she would toggle between viewing me as a teenager in the […]
During my speaking tours around the country, I get a chance to hear what is on the minds and hearts of adult children, the challenges that are the toughest for them to deal with. One question I hear over and over goes something like this, “We see our parents struggling with their living situation, and […]
When I think of grandmothers, I think of fingers. My 96 year old maternal grandmother hardly remembers my name, but I still remember the years I watched her fingers plying the rosary beads one by one for each of her grandchildren. Around her twisty bed post, she’d drape her rose-scented brown rosary, marked with a […]
This week, M expressed a very clear desire to commit suicide, including the method of ending life. Racked with pain, deteriorating health, loneliness and a lack of familial, spiritual and friendly support, M has had enough of living. Statistics in Canada estimate that the number of depressed, suicidal elderly people is 14%. (Canadian Mental Health […]
Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) has taken another well-deserved hit. The Wisconsin Catholic bishops have issued a brilliant statement entitled “Upholding the Dignity of Human Life.” In this statement, the bishops make clear that the POLST form has serious problems, outlining them as follows: The POLST document raises concerns as to whether it accurately […]
In his 2007 book Boomsday, Christopher Buckley writes of a fictional future where an overwhelming number of elderly baby boomers are given tax incentives to end their lives early. With recent developments out of Switzerland, Buckley’s tongue-in-cheek novel may prove all-too-prescient. The Swiss canton of Vaud just passed a law mandating that doctors in hospitals and nursing homes provide […]
Belief in God increases with age. That is the finding of a longitudinal study by researchers at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center. The Center conducted three surveys on religious faith, questioning people of different age groups in 30 different countries. The surveys—conducted in 1991, 1998, and again in 2008—explored the range of […]
