Showing titles in Aging Parents

The stranger came over to where I stood. I wish he hadn't. He told me a story. And now I tell you....

From the time she was conceived, Susan Morse was her mother’s “special” child. For Susan, special translated into becoming her incorrigible mother’s frazzled caretaker, a role that continued into adulthood. Now she finds herself as part of the sandwich generation, responsible for a woman whose 85 years have been single-mindedly devoted to identifying The Answer To Everything. And, this week’s Answer looks like it may be the real thing. Susan’s mother is becoming a nun.

Retirement. You’ve worked for it, planned for it, and dreamed about it: life’s great permanent vacation. But what if retirement could be measured in more than hours on the beach, days on the golf course, and weeks of travel? What if retirement were the beginning, not the end, of your life’s greatest work? What if the rest of your life could be the best of your life? New Man Journey is for any man who longs to make retirement about more than recreation.

From the author of Slow Foreplay On a Fast Bus comes All The Heart's Fault. There is a knock on the door. It is the silence of the night. You come awake slowly. The knock won't go away. You realize it is time again. Death is at the door once more. Also by the same author, The Killing of Train-Man Brown and Send Me a Friend and many, many more short stories.

In Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words, Kate Whouley strips away the romantic veneer of mother-daughter love to bare the toothed and tough reality of caring for a parent who is slowly losing her mind. Yet, this is not a dark or dour look at the demon of Alzheimer’s. Whouley shares the trying, the tender, and the sometimes hilarious moments in meeting the challenge also known as Mom.

In Losing It, William Ian Miller brings his inimitable wit and learning to the subject of growing old: too old to matter, of either rightly losing your confidence or wrongly maintaining it, culpably refusing to face the fact that you are losing it. The "it" in Miller's "losing it" refers mainly to mental faculties - memory, processing speed, sensory acuity, the capacity to focus. But it includes other evidence as wel l- sags and flaccidities, aches and pains, failing joints and organs. What are we to make of these tell-tale signs?

The old woman living in the high rise for the elderly was the same as all those around her.... With one exception...

What would happen if The Unthinkable blindsided you, requiring everything be put on hold to become a full-time caregiver for a loved one? Without a survival guide, it could even destroy your life. Barb Owen delivers precisely that survival guide in Normal Doesn't Live Here Anymore. She weaves a story, based on her life-changing experience as primary caregiver for her elderly parents. Following each chapter a bit of wisdom gained from Barb's experience is summarized as a Reflection.

Marc Freedman, hailed by the New York Times as “the voice of aging baby boomers [seeking] meaningful and sustaining work later in life”, makes an impassioned call to accept the decades opening up between midlife and anything approximating old age for what they really are: an entirely new stage of life, which he dubs the encore years. The whole 60- to 80-year-old period is simply new territory, he writes, and the people in this period constitute a whole new phenomenon in the 21st century.

Lessons at the Halfway Point is a deeply thought-provoking look at one man’s courageous journey to understand life from the perspective of having just turned 40. It is both a wry reflection on the past as well as an optimistic look to a challenging future. Nothing escapes Michael Levine’s critical eye, insightful mind, and often humorous spin on our world and ourselves.

Kiss Tomorrow Hello brings together the experiences and reflections of women as they embark on a new stage of life. The 25 stellar writers gathered here explore a wide range of concerns, including keeping love and sex alive, discovering family secrets, negotiating the demands of illness and infertility, letting children go, making peace with parents, and contemplating plastic surgery. The tales are true, the confessions candid, and the humor infectious.

Getting older takes courage, inspiration, faith and the gift of laughter..at ourselves. I'm in my 70's, so I know some of the aging process. The ability to laugh at ourselves and to not take us too seriously is a tremendous help.

Erfolg beginnt im Kopf - Gabriele Stöger und Mona Vogl erzählen, wie es funktioniert!Erfolgsrezepte klingen immer so einfach: Fettpölsterchen? Mehr Bewegung! Karrierestau? Sich selbst besser verkaufen! Stress am Arbeitsplatz? Zeitplanung! Warum funktionieren diese Rezepte dann ausgerechnet bei mir nicht?Wir stellen uns ständig selbst ein Bein. Wir wissen zwar, was wir sollen, doch: Wir geben zu schnell auf, weil wir selten vorher prüfen, ob uns das Ziel wirklich nützt, wie realistisch es ist, was es uns kosten wird. Ständig flüstert uns der kleine Mann im Ohr: "Das geht schief."

Agata vive con la nuora, vedova del suo unico figlio, e la nipote, madre di un bimbo di tre anni. Le piacciono i gioielli e gli abiti eleganti, ama guardarsi allo specchio e spazzolare a lungo i capelli, che ha di un bianco abbagliante. Emma vive sola, ha lavorato in una fabbrica di iuta e in seguito come cuoca in un convitto. Se ha freddo si butta sulle ginocchia una coperta che ha fatto con le sue mani. Cucina da sé i propri pasti e ogni giorno, dopo cena, si concede un bicchiere di liquore fatto in casa.

Irgendwann wird uns bewusst, dass unsere Eltern ins fortgeschrittene Alter kommen. Ihre Kräfte lassen nach und die alltäglichen Dinge gelingen immer weniger. Als Kinder fragen wir uns dann, was zu tun ist. Gerontopsychologin Katja Werheid zeigt, wie wir es schaffen, für unsere Eltern da zu sein, ohne sie zu bevormunden, und wie wir mit alten Konflikten Frieden schließen, ohne dabei faule Kompromisse einzugehen. Sie warnt vor "Blitzangriffen" und appelliert stattdessen für Empathie und Offenheit in der Kommunikation mit den Eltern.

American baby boomers are aging, and 15 million of them never had children. Who will take care of them? Unprecedented in US history, this demographic will create challenges for these individuals, as well as for society. This book is a passionate exploration of the path ahead for "Solo Agers". Author Sara Zeff Geber takes listeners on a journey, starting with the choice for childlessness and then suggests ways in which Solo Agers can mitigate the absence of adult children by relationship-building and rigorous planning for their future.

Happily Ever Older takes listeners inside nursing and retirement homes and shows novel approaches to community living. Investigative journalist Moira Welsh provides a blueprint for change and proof for industry leaders and governments that good care for seniors is attainable and necessary.

A collection of celebrated columns from The Rumpus with new material and never-before-told tales, OG Dad finds Jerry Stahl fighting a terminal disease - not to mention mortality, sleeplessness, and the soul-crushing weirdness of preschool drop-offs with parents half his age. Square is the last frontier. 

Welcome to Wherever We Are is a meditation on what we hold onto, what we let go of, how we remember others, and ultimately how we're remembered. Deborah Cohan shares her story of caring for her father, a man who was simultaneously loud, gentle, loving, and cruel and whose brilliant career as an advertising executive included creating slogans like "Hey, how 'bout a nice Hawaiian punch?"

From cherished memories of weekends she spent as a child with her indulgent Nana to the reality of the year she spent "ladysitting" her now frail grandmother, Lorene Cary journeys through stories of their time together and five generations of their African American family. Brilliantly weaving a narrative of her relationship with Nana - a fierce, stubborn, and independent woman, who managed a business until she was 100 - Cary looks at Nana's impulse to control people and fate, from the death of her mother and oppression in the Jim Crow South to living on her own in her New Jersey home.