Will I Be Bored in a Home for the Elderly

  It was a Tuesday, pile-on Tuesday for me here in the retirement home. The day the cleaning woman works on this hall. The day I have PT and my book club meets.  Normally I am slow in the mornings, just because I like it that way (I think), but if the cleaning woman is […]

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Is There a Chaplain in the House?

Is There a Chaplain in the House?   If you are helping an elderly person choose an assisted care community, be sure to ask: Is there a chaplain? This is not a minor detail. It is one of the essentials. Anytime you have a building full of elderly people, as you do in such a […]

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A Reason to Grow Old

  This morning, thinking again about a lovely event I attended last week, I realized another perk of living a long life: you get to see your children retire. You might even get to sit and listen while people you don’t know talk about them and their accomplishments. You get to listen to them as […]

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What to Do When I Can’t Do What I Want to Do

Two weeks ago everything was coming up roses for me and my new book. Though the existence of a new virus for which the world was ill-prepared had shown its ugly face in Seattle, I was getting on an airplane headed for the far side of the country, excited about every author’s dream—a book tour. […]

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An Encounter with a Middle Eastern Immigrant

Several years ago I was in Burlington, N.C., and needed a place to spend a couple of hours while my daughter was in a meeting at Elon University. Someone recommended a little coffee shop on the main street past the campus. There was, they told me, a comfortable place to sit and read my book. […]

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