Wise Aging Limit: 20
Presenter: Linda Cantor
This course is based on the book, Wise Aging: Living with Joy, Resilience and Spirit by Rabbi Rachel Cowan and Dr. Linda Thal. Together we will begin to navigate issues of aging that we all face. We will explore this stage of our life and examine topics such as talking about difficult subjects, adapting to changing bodies, dependence and interdependence, cultivating friendships, forgiveness, preparing for the future, living with loss and living life fully.
The class is experiential, and participation is necessary. The class is open to new students and to those who were with us last year.
This course will be taught by multiple presenters, all of whom have been participating in a wise aging group for the past 12 years. They are Linda Cantor, Sandy Corwin, Marge Groten, Muriel Horowitz, Julie Kessler and Mimi Tannen.
Suggested Reading: Wise Aging, Living with Joy, Resilience and Spirit by Rabbi Rachel Cowan & Dr. Linda Thal.
Linda Cantor was trained in leading wise aging groups by Rachel Cowan. Sandy, Marge, Muriel, Julie, Mimi and Linda have been part of a local wise aging group for the past 10 years. Each of them is experienced in leading wise aging groups and were the leaders of last year’s Wise Aging class at LLI.
Class One
I pose this challenge to my spirit
To receive with open mind and heart what is offered to me
May I learn to embrace as easily as I evaluate
May I quiet the ever-present instinct to judge and critique
May I cultivate the gift of listening without framing a reply
May I learn to accept help from those who care for me
May I grow less insistent that life bend to my will and expectations
May generosity of spirit find a home within me
From Vassar Temple
OTHERWISE
Jane Kenyon – 1947-1995
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise.
I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
How to Make End-of-Life Planning Less Stressful
One tip: Do it over chocolate cake.Top of Form
Bottom of Form
By Jancee Dunn
March 8, 2024
You’re reading the Well newsletter, for Times subscribers only. Essential news and guidance to live your healthiest life.
I recently hosted a strange family gathering: an end-of-life lunch.
It was my sister Dinah’s idea. She had been saying for months that it was time to discuss my parents’ final wishes while they were both still able to weigh in.
But I kept putting off the conversation. Who wants to think about it, whether it’s your own or the death of someone you care about?
Research shows that fewer than one third of U.S. residents have advanced-care directives, or detailed medical instructions in the event they can’t communicate their own wishes. Without such instructions, loved ones are left to use guesswork, which can be confusing and chaotic.
So I pushed past my reluctance and invited the family over to talk about everything from their positions on resuscitation and funeral plans to who will take their cats. I even tried to make things festive by ordering pizza and baking a chocolate cake.
I learned things about my family that I never knew: My mom and dad don’t want a memorial service. (“We don’t like big gatherings, whether we’re alive or dead,” my mom explained.) My sister Heather, meanwhile, wants hers to be held at Starbucks. (A Starbucks rep said that while this was “definitely a unique inquiry that we don’t get across our desks often,” they declined to comment further.)
Our lunch was occasionally weird — my dad once read that your “cremains” can be pressed into a working vinyl record, and he briefly floated the idea — but the gathering wasn’t as sad or awkward as I imagined it would be. Instead, it was a relief to chat openly about my folks’ end-of-life wishes instead of repeatedly stashing them away.
If you’ve been putting off these discussions, here’s how to get started.
Schedule a conversation.
First, ask your relatives if they’d be open to a family meeting — in person or on Zoom — and then set a date.
If you need a conversational starter, Mirnova Ceide, an associate professor of geriatric psychiatry and geriatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, suggested bringing up a news story about dementia. “You can say, ‘This got me thinking about how important it is for us to talk about these issues now,’” she said.
If you are the older relative, consider initiating the family meeting yourself, Alua Arthur, an end-of-life doula and the author of the upcoming book “Briefly Perfectly Human,” suggested.
It might feel uncomfortable to broach the subject, she explained, but you can think of getting your affairs in order as a posthumous gift to your family.
You are sparing them a scenario “where they are in the midst of tremendous grief, and then they’re also trying to figure out what to do with all your stuff and where to find your passwords and everything else,” Arthur said.
Prepare a checklist.
Create a document that the whole family can access, and assemble a checklist of topics and prompts to go over, Dr. Ceide said. A good source for questions, she said, is the end-of-life guidelines from the National Institute on Aging.
The two vital things to discuss in the initial meeting, Dr. Ceide said, are who will serve as a health care proxy, acting as your stand-in for health care decisions, and what directives should be in your living will.
“We cannot exert control over the timing and nature of our death,” Diane Meier, a professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, added. “You cannot anticipate exactly what the circumstances will be. So the most important thing to do is to identify someone you trust to speak for you if you are unable to speak for yourself when decisions need to be made.”
The institute also has a list of ways to create advance directives for little or no cost. (And Medicare covers advance care planning as part of your yearly wellness visit.)
Once you decide on your health care proxy and draft a living will, you can make it official by completing a durable power of attorney for health care, a legal document that names your health care proxy. Then distribute copies to your doctor, loved ones and, if you have one, a lawyer. (A lawyer is helpful but not required, according to the institute.)
Get reflective.
Our family had a long talk about how my parents wanted to spend their remaining years. Arthur, the doula, suggested asking: What is still undone in your life? “Because that helps you figure out where you want to place your time and energy,” she said.
We went over the things our parents still wanted to do, and how we could make them happen. My parents said they hoped to travel locally a bit more. My dad wants to attend his 65th high school reunion in Michigan (“at my age, they do it every five years”). Dinah, my sister, said she would accompany him.
Another helpful resource is the Stanford Letter Project, a free website that offers tools and templates for writing a “last letter,” a personal message of gratitude, forgiveness or regret to share with the people you love.
Consider regular check-ins.
End-of-life care is likely too big a topic to resolve in one meeting, Dr. Ceide said. She encourages families to have a regular conference call to check in.
Doing this can help you get on the same page so you’re all aware of, and planning for, issues like getting a ramp for your parents’ house, Dr. Ceide explained. You’re able to address “little things as they come so that when the bigger issues happen, you already have an infrastructure and a comfort with communicating together about these things.”
After our meeting, my father asked me to pack up a piece of chocolate cake to take home. “After all this death talk, I should probably seize the day,” he said.
—————–
Link: Uncertainty is hope
Poems and quotes used in Wise Aging – Uncertainty
“Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.”
~ Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart:
Heart Advice for Difficult Times
I Worried
by Mary Oliver
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
Anais Nin-Risk
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom
Emily Dickinson
In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much – how little – is within our power.
“Can you live life with an attitude of gratitude and embrace change as an opportunity for continuous renewal and growth.”
April 5, 2024
1. poem by Hauntie: (May Yang)
That I could be this human at this time
breathing, looking, seeing, smelling
That I could be this moment at this time
resting, calmly moving, feeling
That I could be this excellence at this time
sudden, changed, peaceful, & awake
To all my friends who have been with me in weakness
when water falls rush down my two sides
To all my friends who have felt me in anguish
when this earthen back breaks between the crack of two blades
To all my friends who have held me in rage
when fire tears through swallows behind tight grins
I know you
I see you
I hear you
Although the world is silent around you
I know you
I see you
I hear you
2. *** From an article in the NYT (“We Know the Cure for Loneliness” by Nicholas Kristof, in the New York Times)
Loneliness crushes the soul, but researchers are finding it does far more damage than that. It is linked to strokes, heart disease, dementia, inflammation and suicide; it breaks the heart literally as well as figuratively.
Loneliness is as deadly as smoking 15 cigarettes a day and more lethal than consuming six alcoholic drinks a day, according to the surgeon general of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Loneliness is more dangerous for health than obesity, he says — and, alas, we have been growing more lonely. A majority of Americans now report experiencing loneliness, based on a widely used scale that asks questions such as whether people lack companionship or feel left out.. . .
“We’re not meant to be lonely as a species,” said Paul Dolan, a professor of behavioral sciences at the London School of Economics who attended the Brighton event. “If you were to think of the most significant interventions to improve life expectancy, after quitting smoking, it’s: Don’t be lonely.”
…Early on, some thought that Facebook and other social media would bind us together, but many experts now think these platforms have instead made us more lonely. People look at Instagram feeds and conclude that everyone else is having fun. Meanwhile, time with screens substitutes for time with human beings.
*** from Poet and philosopher David Whyte:
But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.
3. From poet May Sarton:
“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.”
4. From Jancee Dunn “ When Someone You Love is Upset, Ask this One Question.” in the NYT:
“What do you do when a kid is emotionally overwhelmed?” I asked [a teacher]. Many teachers at her school, she told me, ask students a simple question: Do you want to be helped, heard or hugged?
from Kurt Vonnegut
[When Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope] Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.
“In the Company of Women” by January Gill O’Neill
Make me laugh over coffee,
make it a double, make it frothy
so it seethes in our delight.
Make my cup overflow
with your small happiness.
I want to hoot and snort and cackle and chuckle.
Let your laughter fill me like a bell.
Let me listen to your ringing and singing
as Billie Holiday croons above our heads.
Sorry, the blues are nowhere to be found.
Not tonight. Not here.
No makeup. No tears.
Only contours. Only curves.
Each sip takes back a pound,
each dry-roasted swirl takes our soul.
Can I have a refill, just one more?
Let the bitterness sink to the bottom of our lives.
Let us take this joy to go.
THE AUDACITY
By Laurel Trautwein
How dare she
Wear those shoes
And color her hair like that
And take up space
And use her voice
And allow no diminishing
Who does she think she is
You wonder as you bristle and
Make her an alien in your mind
But buried beneath
Is the seed of envy
And it was you
A stranger to yourself and your power
Who had no map to get
From here to there
Until the great fire
Came and burned away
All the thorns and brambles that kept
You from finding the way home
Into your own heart
Where you will now live
Spending your remaining beats
However you damn well please
Because you are just glad to be alive
After the great undoing and rebuilding
And in the ashes from which you arose
You will find that seed of envy
Transformed
And you will understand how all the others
Dared to be how they wished
Because you are now one
Who has gained
Freedom through fire
So you color your hair with a wisp of purple
Or let your silver shine through
And wear flowing skirts and bangles
Or every color of the rainbow at once
And your presence
Even when quiet
Announces I deserve this
As you become a
Gardener without intending
Planting a seed of permission
And one day an observer
Who is staring as you
Knowingly smile back
Will be collecting the remains
And blooms of her own fire
Only to ask her heart
Not
How dare I?
But always
How can I not?
CUTTING LOOSE
by William Stafford
Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.
Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path — but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.