Spiritual Practice: Aging Well

I’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately because, well, I am aging. I don’t feel any older inside, but the years keep adding up.

How do we look at aging as a spiritual practice?

I’ve watched my husband wrestle with these questions as he turned sixty-five and the warranty on his body seems to have expired. Suddenly he needs cataract surgery and hearing aids. With his spiritual director, he has come to a “letting go,” and “embracing of,” stance. You gotta understand. My husband is tall, handsome, with a full head of brown hair. He gets flirted with constantly and is often confused as our granddaughters’ father. These aging issues should feel like a personal affront to him, yet he is choosing to let go of what he has no control over and embrace the process of aging, looking for its gifts. And for him, these gifts are well worth the losses of aging.

This attitude seems to be the key in the books I’m reading on aging. Also, growing older does not mean stopping living.

Parker Palmer, in his fantastic book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old, writes a series of essays about the aging process. I love this book for his warmth, honesty, and humor. One of my favorite quotes from the book is this:

“Old age is no time to hunker down unless disability demands it. Old is just another word for nothing left to lose, a time of life to take bigger risks on behalf of the common good.” Pg.2

Palmer speaks a lot about the importance of gratitude and the ability, to tell the truth in love, no longer needing to posture or pretend. That is beautiful. He also says we need to embrace everything inside us, our true selves and our shadows, with grace and love. This leads to our wholeness.

That reminded me of a book by Richard Rohr, “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,” in which he describes one of the main tasks of the second half of life as sifting through the first half and making sense of it, learning its lessons, facing our shadows.  Rohr says this process is not necessarily about aging but after suffering a loss, any of us can begin this process of facing the difficult truths about ourselves, though some choose not to. As we do, we become wise instead of bitter. Parker agrees, saying these traumas can either break our heart apart or break it open to love more.  (pg. 161)

Another book that has helped me is, “Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age.” In this book, Mary Pipher uses case studies describing how different women have navigated the aging process. She writes a lot about gratitude and the inner work of aging:

“This may be the most important thing – that we learn to grant ourselves mercy. That we forgive ourselves, that we accept our pain, mistakes, and vulnerability, and somehow manage to love ourselves and our own lives…It is only when we grant ourselves mercy that we can extend mercy to others.” Pg. 158

What I’m learning so far is that aging is about grieving and letting go of the physical losses we can’t control and working hard on the things we can control. Processing our lives, integrating our lessons, and being honest with ourselves about ourselves in grace and love. As we do this difficult inner work it frees us to give back to the world. It allows us, as Parker Palmer says, to “take bigger risks for the common good.”

What are you learning about the process of aging? Are there books you’d like to share?

 

 

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Spiritual Practice: Soul Care

Soul Care

What comes to mind when you think about caring for your soul? In ancient wisdom, the soul is made up of three distinct parts:

• The Body,
• The Mind, and
• The Spirit.

Therefore, caring for the soul must also honor all three parts of who we are.

Wisdom of the Body

The body: We sometimes forget that our body is full of wisdom if we just take the time to listen. Try this: While sitting or lying quietly, let your mind scan your body. If there is any part that draws your attention, really focus on it. Then ask, “What do you need from me?” You’ll be surprised to hear that your body will be quick to tell you. It might just point out the obvious: “I need food, exercise or sex.” But, you might hear something more nuanced, “I need you to step out and take a risk,” “I need you to go see that dermatologist,” “I need more time to play.”

The mind: Sometimes we allow the second half of life to be so filled with caring for the needs of other’s that we forget to care for our own intellectual growth. During the third-third of life, we can be more intentional about this. Studies show that learning new things is important to healthy aging. So, take a class, read a challenging book, try an instrument, cook something you’ve never tried. The fun is in the newness and a learning brain is an awake brain. Awaken to new possibilities.

The Spirit: Contemplative Activist, Parker Palmer once said:

“The soul (spirit) is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.”

I love this picture of sitting quietly, waiting for our spirit to appear. Making space for our spirit unfurl is a gift that the third-third of life can give us as we often have the luxury of more time. I highly recommend setting time aside to listen and breathe while expecting to hear. I think people are afraid of silence because with it they must come face to face with themselves. In silence, there is nothing to distract us from our shadow side. Yet, silence is a gift for in it we can see what in us needs healing, we can forgive ourselves and others, we can dream new dreams for the world.

Body, Mind and Spirit, all waiting to speak, we only need to take the time, to be still, and to listen. How do you listen to all three parts of who you are?

Here’s a book I wrote to help you learn how to listen. It’s fiction and it’s fun too!

 

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Spiritual Practice: Grieving

Grieving is a spiritual practice? I believe it is and it’s one we often try to cut short, but it’s time to reevaluate grieving, it’s time to give it it’s due. I mean, even Jesus wept.

I’ve learned a lot about grief, personally and in my work as a hospice counselor. I guess if I had to summarize what I’ve learned about grief, I would say: White, non-Jewish Americans don’t have the practices in place to support a grieving process that allows the body, mind, and spirit of a person to truly heal after a loss.

Grieving is a beautiful, natural outcome of loss, but we just don’t know how to make space for it in our culture. Let me give some examples of grief I’ve seen in white, non-Jewish families and then compare them to that of other cultures.

I attended a death yesterday of the husband/father of a beautiful family that was quite typical in this way. When the father died, the mother rushed everyone out of the room while the funeral home attendant loaded the body onto a gurney, covered him completely with a blanket and took him out to an awaiting van. It was all very quiet. Then the wife looked at me with a blank expression and asked, “What do we do now?”

Typically, in these kinds of families, what happens next is a flurry of activity. Family and friends are called, the house is cleaned, insurances companies are informed, death certificates are ordered, funeral arrangements made, and the bereft has to make a million small decisions. This process takes about a week, maybe two. Then the funeral comes, an hour of remembrance about the loved one, and that’s it. Now you are expected to go back to work or life — as if your world didn’t just explode.

In a Jewish death, people observe Shiva: the mirrors are covered and people gather to sit with you at your house for a week to offer condolences. Often the dead body is lovingly washed by family. A candle burns in the home and everyone wears a black torn ribbon to symbolize grief. A Jewish friend of mine said when a family experiences a loss, they can turn down social invitations for a year without any bad feelings; I think that is beautiful.

My hospice agency had a Latino family who lost a beloved sister, and when we went to pronounce the death, the house was packed full of friends and family, weeping, wailing and eating together. Death in the Latino community is a communal affair. No one grieves alone. This is true in many other cultures and I believe communal grieving is extremely helpful in allowing the natural process of grief to occur. Grief can receive its full expression and is not cut short.

We need some rituals for our grieving. In the Hebrew Scriptures, grieving is taken seriously. There are psalms called Psalms of Lament and an entire book called Lamentations. Sadly these two sets of scripture have been removed from many modern prayer books. It’s as if we are afraid to give expression to our grief and we choose instead to “suck it up and be strong.” In my opinion, this leads to prolonged/unresolved grief and unhealthy bodies that have to carry unexpressed grief.

Psalm 137

1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
    when we remembered Zion.
2 There on the poplars
    we hung our harps,
3 for there our captors asked us for songs,
    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

4 How can we sing the songs of the Lord
    while in a foreign land?

How can we learn to grieve well?

1. Realize that loss is a natural part of life. Not just death, but any kind of loss: loss of a job, loss of a friend, loss of a pet, loss of your health…
2. Lament is another name for deep grief. Cultures that lament together heal together. As a culture, we have a lot of things we need to lament together to heal our nation: let’s start with the loss of our national unity, or our failure to end racism or systemic injustice. What would it be like to lament that together? Might that be a starting place for the healing of our nation?
3. Make room for grief in your life and give yourself permission to grieve. Take naps, wear waterproof mascara, eat chocolate, lower your expectations…
4. Invite people into your grief so that you don’t have to grieve alone. Friends don’t know what to say to a grieving person but they usually want to help. Let them in on how you’re doing, accept offers of food, chores, and company.
5. Brainstorm, in advance how you want to respond to grief so that you have some ideas/structures in place to help. There are many grief groups, generally offered by hospitals and hospices; those are important, especially if you don’t have family or friends who understand what you are going through.
6. Remember that everyone grieves differently. There is no rule book to follow and those unhelpful reminders by others to, “get on with it,” are just that: unhelpful. It’s okay to stand up for your right to grieve in your own way.

We need to create new rituals to allow for grief. What new ways can we allow ourselves to heal through the power of grief? Are there ways that we can facilitate healthy grieving through art, music, or dance? How can religious/spiritual organizations help create these spaces? What can you add to the discussion? I’d love to hear ideas about how we can help each other grieve more freely.

For more spiritual practices check out my newest book, The Retreat: A Tale of Spiritual Awakening.

Photo Credit: Statute , Violin 

Embracing the Mystery: Moving Toward Unity In The Second Half Of Life

Mysterious Forest in the Pacific Northwest

The goal of the second half of life is to move from “doing” to “being.” I heard that somewhere, probably from my spiritual director. But what does it mean? It does not mean we stop doing things or that we should not enjoy doing things. But our jobs, roles and things we do no longer come to define us.

I was sitting in a small room in Mercy Center with my wise spiritual mentor and a candle burning between us to symbolize the presence of the holy. I was pondering aloud the love and care I get from the “older” saints from my previous organization.

If you’re new to this blog, let me summarize: I worked for a large Christian organization for 30+ years, but I was asked to leave over a difference in theology. It was kind of a big deal. I believe that my rainbow friends should be fully included in the body of Christ and allowed to marry; my employer disagreed and we parted ways. In retrospect, it was best for both of us!

That was almost two years ago. I keep in touch with a few of my friends from those days, the ones that are more like family, but also, there are these “older” saints I mentioned. When I say older, I mean older than I am. Most have retired or are looking at retirement from this organization.

I guess I thought they would be the ones who would try and correct me or “give me a talking to.” But it was the complete opposite. They have not changed towards me at all. They continue to include me in their lives as if nothing had happened, and their love for me remains truly unconditional and sweet. They are like the grandparent who watches their grandchild with love and amusement as the child tries on different personalities in middle school. “Ah, it’s Jacci, isn’t she the cutest thing? I just love her.”

My spiritual director linked these two thoughts for me. As we find our identity in “being” and not “doing” we become more loving and patient with others who are also trying to find their way.

People always quote Richard Rohr to me on this topic. His book Falling Upward speaks to this idea. As we age, we can move closer to unity with Christ, and it puts everything else in its proper perspective. We worry less about who will the next president or if a football star stands for the national anthem. We can trust, listen, love and smile, knowing that others are on their path and I am on mine. It is quite freeing actually.

In full disclosure, I have not read Rohr’s new book, but it is on my short list. I did read this intriguing quote from it though:

“People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know that they don’t know. They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind.” 

So that is my goal. To move toward the mystery and not get bogged down in things I can’t control. I want to love like those older saints who have been so good to me.

How about you? What lessons are you learning as you mature?

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Bathing the Dying: how to care for those experiencing grief and loss

I work in for a hospice company as the Bereavement Coordinator. This job encompasses my training in both pastoral care marriage and family therapy. Wanna see a family go haywire? Just have a member die. I get to be there when things are falling apart. I get to be a peaceful presence in a less than peaceful environment. I love that.

Most people, when told what I do, reply with something like: “Wow, I could never do that. It would be too depressing.” So far, I’ve found it to be anything but depressing. To me, if feels like holy work. It’s an opportunity to bring the Spirit of Peace to a family negotiating one of the worst experiences of their lives. Now, I’ll admit, I’m still new at this, and thankfully, my agency doesn’t work with dying kids. That might push me past my ability to be a calming presence. But so far, it’s been good.

The other day we were working with a family who lived on the margins. They were poor people, in a downtown weekly motel. This kind of living is one step up from homelessness. Living like this does not endear you to other people and this family had rarely been treated with respect. I happened to open the door of their one-room home and come face to face with a holy moment. Our CNA was washing the hair of the dying woman. Her toothless wasted body was two days from death and yet our CNA was lovingly bathing her, gently washing her hair.

The beauty of the action stopped me in my tracks, and I finally backed out of the room with the image seared onto my corneas like a Michelangelo painting. Similar images from the life of Christ flooded my vision: The prostitute who anointed Jesus with the tools of her trade: her tears, her perfume, her hair. There was Jesus’ friend, Mary of Bethany, who unknowingly anointed his body for burial with her gift of costly perfume. There were Joseph and Nicodemus, who prepared his body for burial. And finally, the women who went to prepare his body with spices, after the Sabbath, and found him missing.

The Jews knew about preparing a body for burial; they were not afraid of it, but saw it as a loving and holy act, a precious responsibility. The washing of the dead is a ritual of love that most of us unless we work in a funeral home, are totally unfamiliar with. But in many Jewish circles, it is still done. The family prepares the body after death in a ritual called Tahara. The body is washed and wrapped in a plain white cloth, so there will be no attachment to earthly things and no stigma for the poor. For the same reason, the casket is plain, and also must biodegrade so the body can go back into the earth. Then the family and their friends sit “Shiva” for a week of mourning and the bereaved are not expected to attend social events for a year. What wonderful rituals these are to honor the loss of a loved one.

We non-Jews have lost something significant in these rituals. For us, death has become sterilized. We die and our body is removed by men in black suits that come from a mortuary – looking somber. Or worse, if someone dies unexpectedly, like my mother did, and an ambulance is called, a death room can look more like a crime scene with fire trucks, police, flashing lights, and a coroner. We have funerals or memorial services that are over in an hour. If we are lucky, friends bring us food. But after a week or two, we are left alone with our sorrow.

Recently I sat with a man whose wife, his love of sixty years, was dying. Sixty years! How is he supposed to recover from that? He can’t. He won’t. We shouldn’t expect him to. But we can be there to listen to his rage at her loss, to honor his tears, to hear the stories of their wonderful life together. We can be there to bathe the dead, to open a holy space for the Spirit of Peace to come in.

In what ways have you been able to bathe the dying? How has someone bathed you in your times of grief?

Grieving As Transformation

Last week, to honor the one-year anniversary of my mother’s sudden death, and the six-month anniversary of my job loss, I attended a grief workshop.

About twenty of us sat in a circle around a beautiful, multi-tiered display of broken mugs. There were many kinds, colors, and shapes of mugs. Some were merely chipped, some were smashed, and some had no handle. The analogy centered on Psalm 3:12 which says, “I have become like a broken vessel.”

We were told to pick a mug that resembled how we felt, and then we had twenty minutes to spend thinking through some questions we were given about the mug and our grieving process.

The people in the group were all over the map in their grief work: one woman looked like she was still in shock, head bowed, eyes wide, unable to speak. Her husband had died six months ago and he was only in his forties.

One man had lost his wife two years ago, but described his heart as “shattered.” He looked like he was on the verge of a physical heart shattering with the level of pain he was still holding in.

Some had lost grown children, others lost parents who left them orphaned, as only children, with no children of their own for comfort. Each had their own process of grief.

Some were not grieving the death of a loved one, but a divorce or retirement from a beloved profession.

I chose a cup with no handle because losing my mother and my job felt like losing the things I held on to, the things that took a large chunk of my time and made up a large part of my identity.

But as I examined my cup I saw that it was still beautiful, useful and mostly intact. I saw that it could function very well without its handle…life was going on for me and for the most part, my life is very beautiful. I have a wonderful husband and fantastic children and grandchildren. I work, I write, I have a ministry. I am happy.

When we returned from our time of reflection, we talked about our cups. Everyone had found hope in this exercise in some small way. It gave us words for our experience of grief.

At lunch, we put our cups at the foot of the cross in the chapel. Later, when we returned, there was a new display at the center of the room: it contained beautiful, colorful, whole cups. We were each allowed to choose one and take it home. A cup of blessing.

I realized that I have come far in my grieving process. I am letting go. I’m sure there will be times when I continue to be blindsided by grief, but I have come a long way in healing. And the point of this exercise drove home for me that grief can lead us to transformation, to new places of depth, compassion, and growth. (Tweet This)

In one handout adapted from Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy by J. William Worden, Ph.D., it listed four stages of grief which I will briefly sketch here:

1. 1. To accept the reality of the loss: When someone dies, even if death is expected, there is always a sense that it hasn’t happened. The first task of grieving is to come full face with the reality that the person is dead.
   2. To experience the pain of grief: Many people (and society) try to avoid painful feelings. You must allow yourself to experience and express your feelings, difficult though they may be.
   3. To adjust to an environment in which the deceased is missing: There may be many practical daily affairs you need help and advice with, but there will be a great sense of pride in being able to master these challenges.
   4. To withdraw emotional energy and reinvest it in another relationship: The final task is to effect an emotional withdrawal so that this emotional energy can be used in continuing a productive life.

I learned that each person’s grief is completely unique. It doesn’t really help to compare our grief or expect another to grieve like we do. But, it does help to share the human experience of grief with others who are going through it.

Where are you at in your grief experience? What kind of cracked cup are you and what does God say about it? I’d love to hear about your grief experience so we can hold our cups up together and toast a life of transformation.

 

 

Blindsided! Surviving Grief, Loss, and Disappointment

A year later: I’m still in awe of the support and encouragement of our friends during our Blindside!

My mom died a month ago, suddenly, in her sleep, just died. Did I mention it was a shock?

When something shocking happens, it sends us reeling in a way few other things can. In Baz Luhrmann’s famous graduation speech – Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen,) he says a line that has stuck with me and comes back to me at times like this:

The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindsides you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.

I’ve been blindsided on a few idle Tuesday’s as I’m sure you have. It might be an unexpected death, losing your job, getting a bad diagnosis from the doctor, or being betrayed by a friend. It “knocks the wind out of you,” “pulls the rug out from under you” or otherwise “smacks you upside the head.” We spend a lot of time trying to find words to describe these experiences.

How do we handle it?

How can others help?

When Mom died, David and I spent the week following trying to find words for how we felt. I might say, “I feel like I’ve been beaten with baseball bats,” or he’d say, “I’m totally fried.” Last week I had an experience that gave me the perfect metaphor for the shock I had experienced.

I was walking around a lake in Chicago, it was a beautiful day and I was noting how the forest around me had taken a beating during their rough winter. The ground was littered with broken branches. Ahead of me, the only other person in sight was a man on a backhoe removing some of the branches from a path. He was working away and since I was a lone woman in the middle of nowhere, I was doing a threat assessment. How fast could I run if he turned out to be a bad guy?

Suddenly, his backhoe hit something, there was a loud “bang” and as I looked up, a spray of some kind of liquid covered his entire torso, including a direct hit to his face. Then, it wasn’t about me anymore, it was about him. I ran up to see if he needed help. I thought maybe he’d just been scalded with boiling water from an overheated engine or something.

He was sputtering and wiping what turned out to be oil, from his face. He looked confused and was just trying to breathe and figure out if he was okay. My presence seemed to help comfort him and he found a hanky and wiped his eyes and face. We talked about what had happened, I described what I had seen and he was able to find a broken hose that had caused the trouble. I left him to it and later, on the way home from my walk, he was driving back in the opposite direction and waved.

It hit me then, that is exactly how I felt when mom died. I was working hard; David and I were loading the car for a trip to visit a student in Chico when I got the call. Suddenly I was stopped in my tracks by a blast of the unexpected. I was confused, sputtering, trying to breathe, and wondering if I would be okay. Many people rushed to us, offering Kleenex and casseroles. And life has forever moved in a different direction.

Yep, that’s how it felt for me; I’m wondering what words have been helpful in defining your grief?
And also, how did others help you?

A friend asked me today, “Where did you see God when all this was happening?” My answer was, through people. One friend came right over and sat with me while I filled out papers at the mortuary. Friends brought food, flowers, and wine. One asked what we needed from the store. I said “Milk,” and she brought it right over. We were barraged by lovely cards, Facebook messages, and offers of help. My kids were amazing, giving constant love and support. And for the memorial, I sent out an email to my friends asking them to bring food and never thought about it again. I never even went down into the church’s kitchen area until it was time to eat. Everything had been set up and the tables were laden with food. Yep, my friends were the hands and feet of God to us during our hardest time, and I feel rich indeed.

Now I feel better equipped to respond to others who get blindsided on an idle Tuesday. But everyone’s grief experience is different.

What have you found to be helpful?

 

Second photo from Rembrandt’s Prodigal

A Tribute To My Mother, a year after her death

My beautiful mother died suddenly, a year ago, March 14th, 2014. This is the tribute I wrote for her memorial. At the end is a link to the video my son made of her life in pictures.

LaDonna Fae Terry was born August 29th, 1935 in Wendell Idaho. Her parents, Jack and LeRue Smith had four daughters, of which mom was the youngest: Betty, LeRay, Beverly, and LaDonna. Mom was the boy my grandpa always wanted and she loved her daddy. The locals often called her “Little Jack,” and her family called her “Donnie.” They lived on a farm in Wendell and Mom loved to play clarinet in the high school marching band.
Mom married Tom Terry in April of 1954. He had one son from a previous marriage, our beloved half-brother Jim Terry, and although we didn’t meet him until about 17 years ago, he has been a wonderful addition to our family.
Dad was a produce buyer and he and mom traveled to follow the crops. In 1956, they were in Oregon when Thomas Terry III was born, then in 1959 they were in Burley, Idaho when I was born, and they were in Colorado when Skye was born in 1964.
The family finally settled in California when Dad began working for Safeway in their Produce Division. Upon Dad’s retirement, they moved to Reno in 1984. Mom and dad briefly moved to Idaho where they were living when Dad passed away in 2003, and then mom moved back to Reno.
At that point, Mom thought her life was over. But in 2006 she met Carl Sanford and she and Carl traveled the world together, visiting places like Greece, Spain, England, The Bahamas, Hawaii, and Mexico.
I had lunch with Mom every week and she never failed to say, “How did I get so lucky to have two men who loved me so much. Carl is such a good man and I’m so happy.” Our family is very thankful for Carl, who made Mom’s last eight years such a joy and delight.
That’s the overview; mom died peacefully in her sleep Friday, March 14 and it was a devastating shock to us all. To help you understand why we miss her so, I’ve chosen four words to describe my mom.
First: Mom had Style! You’ll see in the slideshow that Mom loved to dress up. In the 60′s she never left the house without matching hat, shoes, and purses. In the 70′s she was one mod mama! In the eighties and nineties, she found sequins and loved to sparkle. I always called her “my little magpie” because she loved shiny things. When she met Carl, her style relaxed but she still never went anywhere without a wrist full of colorful bracelets and her fingers covered in huge rings.

The second word is Fearlessness! While dad had his career, mom also worked. It was not normal for women in her day, but she worked as a telephone operator. Then with no schooling, she worked as a nurse and even got to help deliver twins. Again, with no formal education, she worked as a dental assistant in both Colorado and California. Then she went to beauty school and eventually owned shops in both California and Reno. Somewhere in there, she was a real-estate agent. She wasn’t afraid to try anything.

The third word I’ve chosen is Fun! Mom told countless stories of the various shenanigans they got into as kids, including how she and her sister Bev, scheduled several dates a half-hour apart and watched from across the street as one sad suitor after another drove away from their house rejected. And, she was always up for a spontaneous road trip to Idaho and loved to play with her children and grandchildren. Mom loved pranks and it was not unusual for her to turn around and be wearing something like this, or this or this (at this point I put on some of her more outrageous hats). I remember the last road trip we took in November. Every now and then she’d turn to me and be wearing these, or these, or these (Here I put on some of her hysterical sunglasses). She was full of whimsy.

The last word I’ve chosen, though I could go on for hours – and I’m hoping some of you will share your stories – is Energetic! Mom had more energy than any person I have ever met. When we were growing up, she played the Banjo and took us to pizza parlors and parades to watch her play. She never really stopped moving, even when she was sitting. As you can tell, she loved to paint (The room was lined with her paintings). When she wasn’t painting, she was embroidering dish towels, or making colorful bracelets. I have hundreds of these, as do all of my siblings and her sister and her friends. I’ve brought a stack of bracelets and put them out for each of you to take some as a reminder to have style, fun, to be fearless and keep moving.

It was mom’s energy level that made her passing so strange to all of us. I had lunch with her Monday morning; Her friend Evelyn went out with her to the Gold and Silver restaurant on Tuesday and mom won $75! Skye was with her Wednesday, and we all saw her Thursday. Carl said that even Thursday night, they watched Pretty Women before bed. Her friend Pat said mom was a “Whirlwind of energy.” I guess that is why none of us thought she would hold still long enough to die, it just wasn’t like her. Mom’s video

Driving Miss Donnie: How to survive a road trip with someone with dementia

I wrote this blog when my mom and I did something we’d done our whole lives: We took a road trip to Idaho. I had no idea when we did it, that it would be our last. I’m so grateful for these memories. 

I’m just back from a four-day road trip with my slightly demented and partially deaf mother. Think Thelma and Louise with a Perry Como soundtrack. It was a wonderful/memorable/trying trip and here are the things I learned from it.

1. Plan ahead. This was a trip for her to see her remaining friends and family for possibly the last time. I called ahead and made sure everyone was in town and we were able to see them all, plus visit the old towns, houses, and farms of her childhood.
2. Ask for support. I asked my Facebook friends to pray for safety and patience. This really helped because the conversation went something like this for 900 miles: Mom: “Would you like a root beer candy?” Me: “No Thank you.” Mom: “Huh?” Me: “NO THANK YOU.” Ten minutes later: Mom, “Would you like a root beer candy?” Me: “No thank you.” Mom: “Huh?” Me: “NO THANK YOU”…
3. Take this opportunity to find out all the wonderful family stories and juicy bits of dirt. When talking about the past my mom is very lucid. I kept her talking most of the way there, to avoid the root beer candy question. I learned lots of lots of great family history now have it memorized after hearing each story at least ten times.
4. Be sure to plan a part of the trip that is fun for you too! I planned an overnight with an old friend and I also set aside an hour for book research. It really helped to break up all the visiting.
5. Be prepared to think of this trip as a labor of love. When I kept my mind in this frame of reference, I did well. When I let down my guard and say, wanted to check my email at night and got interrupted every two minutes, Oscar the Grouch came out. Oops, the expression “labor-of-love” is just that: hard work.

1. Be amazed at the stories people tell. As we visited the relatives and friends, much reminiscing about “the good old days” happened. I felt like I had a front row seat in history. The hard part was that for some, the past was about all they had left to enjoy. Let me tell you, leaving each person we visited was painful. The hard truth that we probably won’t see most of them again.
2. Pay attention to who fares better. My mom’s family is made up of two kinds of people: Mormons and Jack Mormons. Jacks are people who don’t want to be Mormon’s, mostly because they like to raise hell and drink a lot; at least it seemed to work out that way in our family. I’m not a Mormon but I can attest to the fact that on this visit, the Mormon’s were physically and mentally stronger. Something to be said for clean living!
3. The “second childhood” thing can be rather enduring. My mom enjoyed finding pictures in the clouds and surprising me by putting on funny sunglasses when I wasn’t looking. A  magic moment occurred during the overnight at my friend’s when the lights went out in her room and the ceiling glowed with stars. She was thrilled.
4. Bring some old music to make the trip shorter – and a great book. On the way home, mom started cleaning out her glove box. There she found two treasures: her car manual, which provided hours of good reading because when she got to the end, she’d forgotten the beginning and started over, saying “I didn’t know I had a rear defroster!” Second, she realized she had a built-in CD player loaded with music! We were serenaded by Perry Como, Elvis and The Sons of the Pioneers all the way home, which was a nice break from talking.
5. Cherish the memory you made. I learned more from this trip than I ever thought possible. We pulled some long days and my mom never complained once. At every home we visited she was warm, affirming and loving. This is the Mommy I’ve forgotten, the one I missed during the busy years, and the one I rarely see at our weekly lunches because it’s a predictable environment. But four days trapped in a car with someone shows you who they really are, and I loved getting re-acquainted with this Mama. What a wonderful gift. Tomorrow I present her with a photo book full of the pictures we took along the way. I can’t wait.

On-line Dating for Seniors or Dating My Mother!

Many of us in my generation are dealing with a lot of difficult issues concerning our aging parents. After my father’s death, my mom was desperately lonely. So when she came to live with us, I started dating her online. I found a free dating site, sat up a profile for her and monitored it so she could enjoy some male attention.
Here are some of the things I learned from dating my mother.
1. Make a day of the photo shoot. Mom and I had a great time picking lots of outfits for her to change into and taking shots all over the house in different poses. We even did some outside.

                                                           And the Winner is…Carl!
2. Monitor who’s trying to contact your mother. I deleted all the thirty-year-old prisoners who “really liked older women” before she ever saw them.
3. Set up safe coffee dates for your mom. This got mom out of the house and socializing – but safely.
4. If someone seems iffy, drop in on a date. Mom felt one guy might be after her money. So, we set up a lunch date and my husband and I went along. When the guy saw us, his face fell. He knew he was busted and didn’t even offer to pay for lunch.
5. Sneak the age category up when Mom’s not looking. My mom was beautiful and young at heart and at 73, she didn’t want to date anyone over 75. So after a series of losers (like the guy who said he had a cabin and boat at the lake, and only had a shack and rowboat), I sneaked the age limit up to 80. That’s when we met Carl. He’s a retired engineer with a kind heart and a good pension. Mom, who’d never left the USA, has now traveled the world and spent the last eight years with the greatest gift our family has ever received.

So, I’d love to hear your online dating stories. Good or bad. They are fascinating! Also, how have you helped your older, or younger, friends deal with loneliness?