Mary Pipher on the Joys of Being Older

The only constant in our lives is change. But if we are growing in wisdom and empathy, we can take the long view. We’ve lived through seven decades of our country’s history, from Truman to Trump. I knew my great-grandmother, and if I live long enough, will meet my great-grandchildren. I will have known seven generations of family. I see where I belong in a long line of Scotch-Irish ancestors. I am alive today only because thousands of generations of resilient homo sapiens managed to procreate and raise their children. I come from, we all come from, resilient stock, or we wouldn’t be here.

By the time we are 70, we have all had more tragedy and more bliss in our lives than we could have foreseen. If we are wise, we realize that we are but one drop in the great river we call life and that it has been a miracle and a privilege to be alive.

The Joy of Being a Woman in Her Seventies

Dying May Be Easier Than Talking To Your Family About Dying

The New York Times has been following a small group of vitally engaged people over 85 since 2015. Now, only one of them is left.

For the elders and their families in the Times series, the deaths were all different, the emotional preparations even more so. None were what anyone had hoped. As predictable as death in old age has become, families still have little guidance for the last stretch of life.

Fred Jones died just days after one of his daughters died, in April 2016; John Sorensen, who said on every visit that he wanted to die, died in June that year, missing his partner of 60 years. Jonas died with finished manuscripts around him; Ping Wong had a stroke and refused her daughter’s entreaties to eat; Helen Moses closed her eyes in early December and never opened them again, dying five days later, a talkative woman reduced to silence.

The one left is Ruth Willig, age 96.

Finally, she said, “I’m ready, I am. But I worry about my children. They’re so devoted to me. It scares me.”

It is one of the most vexing chapters of old age: how to navigate not just the inevitable ending, but the days and months immediately before it. As the bonds of support and dependency change, how do we tell our children that it is O.K. to say goodbye? And how do we tell our parents that it is O.K. to go?

...

The vocabulary of loss and grief, which can bloom into eloquence after someone’s death, is of no use in the weeks or months leading up to it. Instead, there is language suited to war: the battle against illness or refusal to quit, the heroic struggle whose linguistic alternative is failure or giving up.

The Doctors Said No to a DNR

From Pro Publica:

Does preserving organs for transplant make doctors reluctant to permit a do not resuscitate order?

There can be few greater points of contention between physicians and families, few so infused with emotion and anguish on both sides, than whether to resuscitate someone on the verge of death. Hospitals have been sued and nursing homes fined for resuscitating patients who had a DNR order on file. Or families may urge a medical team to initiate resuscitation that a physician believes is futile, or even torture, for a patient with a terminal diagnosis. The decision is inherently subjective, and ultimately, doctors are supposed to respect the wishes of patients — or, if they can’t speak for themselves, their health care proxy.

My Beautiful Death; An Artist Discovers That Her Materials Have Poisoned Her

Toronto-based sculptor Gillian Gensler writes about discovering that the shells she uses in her work have been toxic, including the statue she calls Adam:

I completed Adam in 2015. If I had left him unfinished, this all would have been for nothing. I often think of Beethoven, who suffered from lead poisoning; he lost his hearing and producing his work became an angry struggle. In the end, he had to create his music from the memory of sound. I was creating my art from the memory of joy. When I look at Adam, I feel grief—both for myself and our planet. But I also feel satisfaction because he is magnificent. That’s how I find my hope. I call him my beautiful death.

My Beautiful Death

Colbert and Cooper on Grief

“You wrote me a letter after my mom died,” he reminded Colbert. “In it you said, ‘I hope you find peace in your grief.’ One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about is how we don’t really talk about grief and loss. People are not comfortable talking about it. . . . And you’ve spoken very publicly about what you experienced as a kid — a lot of it I didn’t know. I think a lot of people don’t know. So if you don’t mind, I wanted to talk to you a little about it and sort of how it has shaped who you are now.


...

Colbert: You become a different person. . . . You kind of re-form yourself in this quiet, grieving world. . . . It became a very quiet house and very dark. And ordinary concerns of childhood suddenly kind of disappeared. . . . I had certainly a different point of view than the children around me.”

Stephen Colbert answering Anderson Cooper’s question about grief

End of Life University: Making Hard Times Less Hard for Others

Podcast: How to Make Difficult Times Better as a Death-Aware Person

5 tasks to make difficult times better:
Be willing to show up when things fall apart
Be a safe container
Be a deep listener
Be a truth-teller
Be a way-shower

What does it mean to create new life when one parent is dying?

Caitlin Gibson writes about the poignant choice to create new life when one parent has a terminal diagnosis:

Ben Boyer can still picture the expression on his wife’s face that night six years ago, as they talked over dinner at their favorite Italian restaurant in London. It had been four years since Xenia Trejo had been diagnosed, at the age of 33, with a malignant brain tumor that doctors said would eventually end her life. But as she sat across the table from Ben that evening, Xenia radiated joy. She felt strong, and after numerous rounds of treatment, her doctors had just told them that Xenia’s tumor was stable enough to do something she had long dreamed of: pursue a pregnancy. Now Xenia was asking Ben, What do you think? Should we try?

...

These are distinctly modern stories. For couples who confronted grim diagnoses before the turn of the millennium, the option to preserve their fertility was much harder to find and less likely to succeed. But the ability to freeze and test embryos improved dramatically in the early 2000s, bringing with it complex existential questions. What would it mean to have a baby in these circumstances for the parent who would die? For the parent who would live? For their child?