Monthly Archives: July 2012

Senior flash mob

http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/west_roxbury/2012/06/video_seniors_flash_mob_west_r.html

:- Doug.

Posted in Healing and Wholeness | Leave a comment

Interview your elders

Interview your elders: What is life about? What does it mean to be an elder to your tribe, to do the work of eldering?

:- Doug.

Posted in Conversation, Eldering | Leave a comment

Conversation: what matters

Conversation: what matters.

:- Doug.

Posted in Conversation, Family | Leave a comment

Law is a complex weave

Law is a complex weave of possibilities, risks, costs, feelings, interests, people, and vagaries, among other threads. It is not therefore a vending machine: money in/product out.

:- Doug.

Posted in Conversation | Leave a comment

Quick! Get me to a TV show!

Quick, get me to a TV show! Since the TV patients who get CPR survive 67% of the time, and those in the hospital only 6.5 to 15%, and the ones on TV recover fully, then if I need CPR, don’t take me to a hospital; get me to the TV station!

:- Doug.

Posted in Emergency/Crisis Medical | Leave a comment

Replanted in a nursing home

When Mom is pulled up by the roots
Replanted in a nursing home
We are ripped apart
There is a hole in the garden
Or we can see the garden wider
Extending to the nursing home
Fertilized by love
What then can be for us
The new life
The new whole
Can we dare think
The new flowering?

:- Doug.

Posted in Aging, Caring, Dreams, Eldering, Family, Long-Term Care | Leave a comment

What of the fragile?

What of the poor, the frail, the fragile? They have no more strength for anything outside themselves: perhaps. But what can they do? What do they do? They can love: they can turn outwards. Turning outward reverses the flow of disease. Love makes whole.

:- Doug.

Posted in Healing and Wholeness | Leave a comment

See the brother and sister

See the brother and sister from far ends of the country who are dumping their mother in the best nursing home money can buy, easing their consciences by spending her money on her “care,” when she needed their presence.

:- Doug.

  1. See the brother and sister from far ends of the country who are dumping their mother in the best nursing home money can buy, easing their consciences by spending her money on her “care,” when she needed their presence.

Posted in Family, Long-Term Care | Leave a comment

So near

So near
So hear

:- Doug

  1. So near
    So hear

Posted in Conversation, Family | Leave a comment

Inviting old age to pour

I invite this old age estuary to pour into the sea, to expand and spread itself. This is a larger picture than devising the meaning of one’s life, of hugging and forgiving and laughing and crying at our death bed. We all are poured out into the great sea; we all spread out and expand. This is something to celebrate, not mourn. We can pour out our libation into the great sea, and become larger whole.

:- Doug.

Posted in Aging, Healing and Wholeness | Leave a comment

Love letters to our families

Wills, Trusts, Powers of Attorney, Personal Care Agreements, Living Wills, end of life caring, Long-Term Caring: I help people write love letters to their families.

:- Doug.

Posted in Conversation, Eldering, Family, Healing and Wholeness, Long-Term Care, Powers of Attorney, Trusts and Trusting, Wills | Leave a comment

Who speaks first?

If our client has the right to his or her own death upon which he or she has not focused, who should first raise the question?

:- Doug.

Posted in Conversation, Death and dying | Leave a comment

The challenges and joys of eldering?

What are the challenges and joys of eldering?

:- Doug.

Posted in Eldering | Leave a comment

When our death is upon us?

When our death is upon us, what shall we do? How shall we meet?

Shall we be drugged, or so tired we do not meet well?

Shall we be joyful, grim, with friends and lovers, alone, with book, music, stillness?

:- Doug.

Posted in Death and dying | Leave a comment

Sleep through my death?

Do I really want to sleep through my death?

:- Doug.

Posted in Death and dying | Leave a comment

Can death enrich life?

Can death—Dad’s, Mom’s—
enrich our lives
—& theirs?

:- Doug.

Posted in Death and dying | Leave a comment

What are the questions?

What are the questions we should be asking about elder years to get us where we want to go?

:- Doug.

Posted in Eldering | Leave a comment