Showing results for "Literature" in Aging Parents

Following her retirement from Princeton University, celebrated historian Dr. Nell Irvin Painter surprised everyone in her life by returning to school - in her 60s - to earn a BFA and MFA in painting. In Old in Art School, she travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, even as she comes to understand how they may be undervalued; and struggles with the unstable balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful, demands of a life fully lived.

Joan Boice, a retired school teacher afflicted with dementia, hoped to hang on to her dignity and safety when she checked into Emerald Hills, a facility run by America’s largest assisted living company. What she and her family got was an introduction to what many think is the country’s next great health crisis.

All of us are familiar with the fairy tales of youth where the young hero and heroine fall in love, defeat their enemies, marry, and live happily ever after. The fairy tales gathered here are about what happens next, when the Prince goes bald and the Princess has a midlife crisis. They portray middle-aged men and women facing the special issues dealing with crisis, aging and mortality, and the desire for renewal.

We are each crowned twice in this lifetime, teaches the Jungian analyist Marion Woodward. Much is written about the promise of the first crowning, at birth. But what of the second, which comes only after a lifetime of experience? This "crown of age" she says, a symbol for the culmination of our inner and outer development as human beings.

Rose is delightful, flamboyant, and a widow. Having just lost her husband, Rose's daughter steps in to find Rose increasingly disoriented and forgetful. Even as a nurse, Maureen does not recognize the early signs of her mother's dementia - a diagnosis that changes her mother's life and those close to her. The contrast between the reality of Rose's condition and the "Casablanca Style" in which she lived is stark yet beautiful. This book parallels Still Alice's medical description of the illness but picks up where Still Alice leaves off.

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.

Today's grandparents aren't content to sit in their rockers doing needlepoint or whittling wood - modern grandparents are healthy and active. Grandma may be traveling the world, writing a book, or taking dance lessons and Grandpa might be camping with the grandkids, playing a golf tournament, or skydiving! Nana may have entered the family by marrying Grampa later in life, or Pop-Pop may be a beloved family friend who's always there when someone needs him. Families are finding that the meaning of "grandparent" has changed tremendously but that grandparents continue to be treasured members of our families.

With a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, humorist Karen O'Connor invites you to chuckle and even laugh out loud at the mishaps, misunderstandings, and missteps we all make in our journey to maturity, You'll enjoy listening to and sharing these short stories that highlight the joy of being alive, the funny situations we get ourselves into, and the faith that makes life worthwhile.

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.

This vibrant, provocative collection from the publishers of the best selling, award-winning When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple is a compelling anthology of poems and short stories through which women candidly reveal their hidden feelings about their bodies. They delve into such compelling topics as budding sexuality, childbirth, physical strength and weakness, menopause, and aging.

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.

Drawing on the author’s seven years of caring for his mother through Alzheimer's, Be With: Letters to a Caregiver is what its title promises: four dispatches to an anonymous long-term caregiver. In brief passages that cast fresh light on what it means to live with dementia, Barnes shares trials, insights, solace - and, ultimately, inspiration.