I notice things as a father that I never had before becoming a parent. And one of the most striking is how inflexible many people are who don’t have children. This is a gross generalization, of course, but many are incredibly annoyed on an airplane, for example, when my child is somewhat disruptive, all the… [Read more…]
July 21, 2010
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald. The accompanying graph shows one way that they are different. The spend a ton more money at the end of life. Not that it gets them anywhere. The New York Times reports on a paper than… [Read more…]
June 30, 2010
Women are at the forefront of one of the most fundamental transformations of the 21st century. For the first time in human history, the number of people older than 65 will be larger than those under age 5. Demographers say that the fastest growing age group is those older than 85. One study found that… [Read more…]
June 21, 2010
I’m late getting to reading my subscription to The Atlantic, so I’ve only just read this article from the April issue: Letting Go of My Father. It’s about the author’s descent as he suddenly discovered that his father was badly in need of assistance because of his Parkinson’s. Living in Phoenix, while the author lived… [Read more…]
June 17, 2010
Good or bad, right or wrong, caring for elderly family members usually falls to the women in a family. As a man, I can see why this would be, though I certainly think that men would do well to take up some more of the caregiving responsibility. It is important, even holy, work. And it’s… [Read more…]
June 11, 2010
I’ve been asked a number of times since The Art of Dying was released how I could have ended up writing it. I look too young, people have said. Well, there are a number of quick responses to that. As a hospice volunteer, I’ve been around dying people a considerable amount, and I’ve learned a… [Read more…]
May 6, 2010
I began exploring the issues that I eventually wrote about in The Art of Dying after visiting my great aunt who was dying of cancer. She was in a hospital bed that was in her apartment. I tell the full story in the book. But I left feeling that I simply didn’t know what to… [Read more…]
March 15, 2010
I met a widower last week who told me about his wife’s breast cancer. She had received surgery then chemo and radiation, and for a few years the cancer went into remission. Then it returned. They fought it again, but this time with less success. With kids in school and hospital bills filling the mailbox,… [Read more…]
March 9, 2010
New research is showing that physical touch is important in nearly every relationship, from the doctor’s office to the basketball court. It is a lesson I learned my first night visiting the residents of a nursing home. I’ve tried to remember the importance of touch every time I’m with the elderly now, including grandparents and… [Read more…]
February 24, 2010
First published at Duke Divinity School’s Call and Response Blog. A family close to me recently lost their beloved matriarch. Betty cared for her Parkinson’s-stricken husband for years, then received word from her doctor that she had mouth cancer. She persevered through chemotherapy and radiation, hoping for a miracle. But she decided against surgery to… [Read more…]
October 12, 2010
5