We know from the scientific literature and common sense how social connections typically decrease as people retire from day jobs, children become enmeshed in their own lives or even move away, grandchildren move on, and relatives, friends, neighbors die or simply are unavailable to sustain a treasured friendship. I remember watching my parents’ friends, who I’d known since youth, pass away, move away to be nearer their children, or lost interest in lifelong friends. 

My parents lived into their 90s, so it’s not too surprising that my mother often said, “All my family, all my friends are gone.” She became the oldest person she knew and the oldest and only person alive from her birth family. 

This, of course, is not news. But I’ll wager it’s not something most people think about or plan for. It is something I heard not just from my mother but also from participants in our decades long Adult Changes in Thought or ACT study, a long-running cohort study of aging. 

SOCIAL CONNECTEDNES: A POTENTIALLY REVERSIBLE RISK FACTOR FOR DEMENTIA 

 According to the recently released Third Report of the Standing Lancet Commission on dementia, social isolation is a potentially reversible risk factor for dementia. 

The Lancet is perhaps the most renowned international medical journal. It charters working commissions that work on important international health issues ranging from hepatitis, high blood pressure, global infection threats, to obesity, and including the early work relating health, energy and climate change. 

I was invited to convene with international experts on aging and dementia to write The Lancet Commission Report on Dementia: Prevention, Intervention and Care. We published our extensive first report in 2017. Unlike other Lancet commission reports that are often “one and done,” the commission has now published three widely circulated reports, which reflect great increases in the population of older persons throughout the world coincident with the ongoing, vast expansion of scientific efforts and knowledge about dementia. 

Summarizing what is currently known about prevention of dementia is a key feature of the Commission’s reports. One of the third report’s remarkable findings was naming the 14 potentially reversible risk factors which, if avoided or  improved, had the potential to  reduce lifetime risk of dementia by almost half. Infrequent social contact appeared in the second report and was supported with more detailed evidence in the third. Based on published research, the commission concluded that reducing social isolation or, conversely, maintaining frequent social contact had the potential to contribute 5% of the about 45% of total possible risk reduction from all 14 factors. I hope to write about some of the other 13 risk factors in future issues of 3rd ACT. 

Maintaining social connectedness, being mindful and, if needed, proactive about the tendency for social connectedness to decline with age is what I wish to highlight now. 

BE AWARE AND BE YOURSELF AS YOU AGE 

My dear mother was an accomplished pianist and on and off again a church organist. Formerly, a lab technician, her second career was working in our school district’s library support center. In retirement she was quite happy playing her piano, reading and puttering about our family home and eventually a duplex apartment in a local senior community. She enjoyed being with younger people, and, as she saw her social circle contract, she redoubled efforts to foster new friendships, participate in study groups, seek out younger new friends, go to concerts, recitals, even attend the Portland Opera for as long as possible. She was not a natural social butterfly but even as her mobility declined due to severe osteoporosis and arthritis she reached out to others. She didn’t deny the impacts of disability but rather presented herself as she was. She didn’t bemoan or deny her challenge with short term memory as it declined but instead generally made light of or even joked about the recent events and even familiar names she didn’t remember. She stayed true to who she had been and had become and expressed the lifelong interest in others and events that she always had. I’m sure, as an experienced dementia research scientist that she avoided some of her late in life cognitive decline by staying socially connected. 

As her son, I’m grateful for the example she provided. It’s not too surprising now that aging science recognizes the value of maintaining social connectedness as a potentially reversible way to reduce dementia risk and cognitive decline. But… 

THANKS MOM! 

Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington. He was Co-Principal Investigator of the SMARRT trial and formerly Vice President for Research and Healthcare Innovation at Group Health and Kaiser-Permanente Washington. With colleagues he co-founded the long running Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study in 1986. He continues research through the UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and other projects and has participated in The Lancet Commission on Dementia since its inception. With co-author Joan DeClaire he wrote the well-received book, Enlightened Aging: Building Resilience for a Long Active Life.  

The Surprises of Aging: Friendships, Creativity and Satisfaction with Life Can Flourish

Something Greater Than Ourselves

The post Stay Connected to Reduce the Risk of Dementia appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

Since moving to Seattle from New York City in 2017, 86-year-old abstract painter Elinore Bucholtz has had solo shows at Joe Bar on Capitol Hill, Caffe Ladro in Edmonds, Fresh Flours Bakery on Beacon Hill, and Equinox Studios in Georgetown. Capitol Hill Art Walk showed her work at Chophouse Row, Starbucks, Ada’s Technical Books and Cafe, and Roy Street Coffee & Tea. Last year alone, her paintings have been displayed at Capitol Hill’s Kismet Salon & Spa, she was featured on the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog and in Northwest Prime Time, and she was named Seattle Refined Artist of the Week. 

Not bad for a former New York City public school teacher who started painting after retiring at age 56 and enrolling in workshops at the Art Students League of New York. 

Born in British Palestine in 1938, Bucholtz and her father Samuel, mother Rena, and older sister Edna experienced a harrowing, three-month journey emigrating to America During World War II. “The United States government thought that German general Erwin Rommel was coming through the desert to take over,” she explains. “They told us to get out as fast as we could.” 

According to Bucholtz’s late father, her mother’s stomachache prevented passage on the first available ship—a lucky break in hindsight, considering the ship was bombed and sank. Instead, the family booked a boat out of Port Said, Egypt, traveling first by train some 450 miles to Cairo when she was two years old and then another 125 miles to Port Said. 

“My father told me the station was bombed as our train left Cairo,” she adds. Her family sailed on three different ships—skirting open ocean combat and rough weather, according to Samuel—before arriving at Ellis Island. “My father said he held me up to see the Statue of Liberty, but I don’t remember that.” 

Her family lived in New York for a few years before moving to Arizona and eventually settling in California. Bucholtz majored in English and American Literature at the University of California Los Angeles and moved to New York City, where she taught junior high school English for 25 years. 

Bucholtz moved to Seattle to be closer to her son, Sam, and daughter-in-law, Ireland. Her two-bedroom Capitol Hill apartment serves as her residence and painting studio, while a storage unit in Seattle holds roughly 250 original paintings. She recently shared some insights into her experiences in life and art. 

“New York had everything I wanted.” 

“I was 23 when I moved to New York in 1961. It had everything I wanted—opera, concerts, museums, and Broadway. I found a Manhattan studio apartment I could afford. My first job was [teaching English at a junior high school]in Queens. I took several buses and subways to get to work. I was late every day. After a few years, I found a job teaching at a junior high school in Manhattan, closer to home.” 

“I never dreamed of making art before I retired. I didn’t even doodle.” 

“When I retired, I asked myself what I enjoyed doing. I enjoyed visiting New York City’s art museums and seeing other artists’ work. So, I decided to try it myself and I got hooked. I’ve been painting for 30 years. I never dreamed of making art before I retired. I couldn’t draw anything when I was young. I didn’t even doodle.” 

“Color and shape were enough.” 

“My early paintings were representational and figurative. I painted people and objects. I haven’t done those in years. A couple of years into taking workshops at the Art Students League of New York, I was tired of drawing or painting leaves, trees, or fruit. I tried abstract painting, just shapes and colors, which worked for me. I was very comfortable with it. Color and shape were enough for me.” 

“My paintings dance or sing.” 

“I think of my art in terms of ‘abstract lyricism.’ My paintings have motion—almost like they dance or sing—rather than just sitting there. Today, all my work is abstract. I use acrylic on canvas because it dries quickly and I can paint over it if I make a mistake.” 

“[Art] just happens.” 

“I met a young man who asked me how I came up with ideas for what to paint. I couldn’t say because I take a brush, put paint on the canvas, and then see where I should go. It’s not anything I work out ahead of time. It just happens. On the other hand, my paintings are much freer than I’ve seen other people do. Maybe that’s because I didn’t go to a formal art school.” 

“A psychic told me I would live to be 105 years old. Who knows?” 

“At one point, I had an operation, and my son, Sam, who had moved to Seattle many years before, came to New York. He told me he wanted to take me back to Seattle with him. He works hard and I couldn’t expect him to go back to New York every time I had a health issue. My son and daughter-in-law live about a block away. I usually paint the first half of the day before I go out for a walk in the afternoon. I had friends over for ice cream cake on my 86th birthday last November. I went to a psychic once and they told me I would live to be 105 years old. Who knows?” 

Seattle journalist Todd Matthews has written for more than two dozen print and online publications in the past 25 years. His work is collected online at wahmee.com. 

Be a Part of It

The post Art in Motion appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

   I see life as a journey by foot through time. 

   Is there such a thing as a “pilgrim gene?” Travel writer and novelist Bruce Chatwin wrote of the “sacramental” aspect of walking. These days, a lot gets written about its therapeutic value for seniors like myself. 

   I have never given much thought to the practical benefits of my obsession. The post-war Bronx, New York, where I grew up, was haunted by a hushed word: Holocaust. No Jewish home was without it, without the distancing silence it opened up between parents and children, the loneliness contained in the unexplained. 

   I walked to get away from it, to map with my feet something that was my own, unshadowed: the soft spring light on gray buildings, the delicious silence of snow, the daggered wind. I bravely absorbed the wind. The wind absorbed me. Every gust I felt in my travels seemed a continuation of those first gusts in the Bronx. 

  Walking was the incubator of imagination. I’d find myself with Huck Finn, on his raft, navigating the Mississippi. Walking, you might say, on water. Passing the Chinese takeout as we oared deeper into the great river. 

   I was 80 when COVID hit. An inauspicious time to be an incorrigible walker. New York residents bandied back and forth a brand-new word—lockdown. Everyone was urged to remain housebound. Virtually all work places, including public libraries, and my Poets House, were shut down.  

  Immobility was more fearful to me than possible death. Immobility was death. Every morning I took my backpack and went out in search of a writing refuge. I’d pass block after block of empty streets and shops. The feeling of having wound up on an abandoned Hollywood movie set: New York at the end-of-days. 

   My shadow was the only shadow I encountered. If I cried out, no one would hear me. 

   After much searching, I found what I was looking for: a bench along one of the promontories of the Hudson River. I still go there to write. The joggers have returned. The yellow kayaks are back in the water. The past is back as though it had never been away.  

   I still remember stopping cold in the middle of a line. I’d be sitting in the sun, in the cool breeze of the river, hand poised dynamically in midair, and be jolted by the sudden awareness that all over the city old people like myself were lying stiff on gurneys.  

   Why them and not me? Who does the cosmic math that decides such things? Who turns the sun toward my face and away from theirs? 

   I’d walk back home slowly, my shame leaning heavily against my feet. Survivor shame. The shame my family felt towards relatives who disappeared into ditches in Poland. Gone one day as if they’d never been. 

   When the war ended, there was an outbreak of desperate walking throughout Europe. 

People looking for their past, for people who were part of their past, for homes and neighborhoods and hopes that needed to be reclaimed, or finally put to rest.  

   Sometimes, walking in my old neighborhood, walking is the only familiar thing I find. New layers of ethnic skin have grown over the old. New histories have replaced the old. After a while, even the soft edges of one’s nostalgia are blunted. You can’t outwalk loss. Losing, as the poet Elizabeth Bishop wrote, is an art. One that isn’t hard to master. It takes practice, she said. Aging gives us many opportunities for mastery. 

   I have lived for the past half century on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Since COVID, one sees fewer old people in the streets. There is an emptiness beneath the sheltering trees of the Village View housing complex where many seniors live. The habit of indoor living is like any other habit. It revolves around itself. It atrophies itself from what is not itself. It sees the outside world from within, and pronounces it dangerous. 

  At Village View there lives a woman, who like myself, turned 85 last year. She leaves her house only to shop, to go to the doctor. When we were young, we were lovers and great friends, and the cafes and movie theaters we walked to were the extensions of our love.  

   Visiting her, I connect with the strange intimacy of walking. We didn’t walk as far as we thought we would. In my dreams, I walk without stopping. I am always walking. 

Robert Hirschfield is a New York-based writer and poet. He has spent much of the last five years writing and assembling poems about his mother’s Alzheimer’s. In 2019, Presa Press published a volume of his poems titled, The Road to Canaan. His work has appeared in Parabola, Tricycle, Spirituality & Health, Sojourners, The Moth (Ireland), Tears in The Fence (UK) and other publications.      

A New Friend for The Long Journey — 3rd Act Magazine

Diana Nyad and Bonnie Stoll Want to Take You for a Walk — 3rd Act Magazine

Richard Lewis: Drawing Water from The Children’s Well — 3rd Act Magazine

The post A Walking Life appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

Going through my mother’s things when she died, I found gifts my siblings and I had given her over the years—scarves, gloves, jewelry—still in their boxes, wrapped in yellowing tissue, waiting for an occasion important enough to wear them. 

Erma Bombeck, the humorist who wrote about suburban home life, did this, too. When she was diagnosed with a fatal illness, she wrote a column titled, If I Had My Life to Live Over,  

listing what she would do differently if she was granted the chance to do it all over again. The last item on the list is a valuable life lesson, learned too late by many: 

   “ Mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute … really see it … live it.” 

I, too, have regrets about things that could have been and never will be, things I put off using and doing. There are clothes hanging in my closet that I have outgrown without ever having worn. There are delicacies in my kitchen cupboard past their expiration date that I have to discard without ever having tasted. Unlike Bombeck, I survived my cancer, I have been given a second chance. But after a lifetime of making tomorrow more important than today, I sometimes have to force myself to take that chance. My mother is in part responsible for this. Never underestimate the tenacity of a mother’s teachings. I’ve outlived my mother by many years, I’ve surpassed her in formal learning, I function in a technology-driven world that she never could have coped with. Yet, her simple lessons and cautions still influence my every day. 

Cooking for my family is one of my great joys. My grandchildren delight especially in the appetizers I serve. A Mother’s Day note from my grandson listed three reasons he loved me. I don’t remember the first or the second, but I’ll never forget the third: “You make the best hors d’oeuvres.” One holiday I surprised them with Japanese Rumaki. Whole water chestnuts are wrapped in bacon that has been spread with brown sugar on one side and whole grain dijon mustard on the other. The bacon is secured with a toothpick and the wraps are baked until the bacon is crisp. Everyone liked them, but my granddaughter Jenna loved them. “Nana, promise you’ll make them again!”  

“Next occasion,” I promised.  

Jenna didn’t have a next occasion. The can of water chestnuts I bought and saved just for her sits in my cupboard. I will never use it.  It’s there to remind me that life itself is a special occasion.  

As my life winds down, I find myself following Bombeck’s advice. When I am tempted to save for tomorrow something that will make me happy today, I tell myself, “Use the good stuff!” Don’t wait for that perfect moment. It’s now. 

Cathy Fiorello is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Still Point Arts Quarterly, and Scholastic Magazine. She is the author of the recently published PARIS: SHARING THE MAGIC, an ode to the city on the Seine. 

Right-Size Your Life Now

Life’s Completion

The Perfect Family—A choice to let go the desire for perfection

The post Now appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

We spoke a bit afterwards. We discovered we both wrote poetry. She mentioned the magic name, Frank O’ Hara, and I felt a door open. She mentioned, when we met again, that she was the recipient of a disability check because of mental illness. Her unashamed revelation made the door open even wider. 

At 85, my friends tend to range from their late 60s to their late 80s. We share a generational common room younger folks would rather avoid. While hardly an end game crawl space (most of my friends remain working writers and artists), our conversations often touch upon medical conditions, losses, fears of decline. Sharon, at 58, is intimate with all of it, yet also distant from it. 

“It’s strange. Part of me still feels like a young girl, not a woman growing old.” 

Long separated from normal routines of work, family, most social obligations, she is content to simply watch the world move, so long as it doesn’t move brusquely or unexpectedly loudly, which frighten her. She is quiet the way retired older people are quiet. When a life is no longer seen to mean much, there is a tendency not to say much. Often it’s as if she’s waiting for me to press a button to get her started. 

My new friend is a Quaker. She practices Gandhi’s ahimsa. She doesn’t eat meat. (“I am a junk food vegetarian.”) She’ll gently attend to stray souls. She hovers over her sleeping rescue cat, Lilli, like a 21st century Magi adoring the baby Jesus.   

The shadow side of her mind doesn’t practice ahimsa. It is a marauder. It catapulted her into mental hospitals. It robbed her of the work she loved—high school teacher, college counselor.  

Sharon grew up in Los Angeles and Chicago. She thinks of herself mainly as a Californian. I think of her as a Midwesterner, possibly because of her stories about her maternal Baptist grandfather from Indiana—both her parents are from Indiana—who founded five churches and who played Chicago Cubs games so loudly on his radio you could hear them down the block.  

“My parents were devoted to me. I was an only child. They went out of their way to make me feel special. My father would drive me to the meetings of the Baker Street Irregulars in Los Angeles. (She was an avid Sherlock Holmes reader.) My mother sent me cab money for me to get to my teaching job in Brooklyn when I was too depressed to take the subway. They were not the problem. The problem is me!” she says with a laugh. 

She will periodically anesthetize herself against life by dying to it in deep sleep that can last, on and off, for days. Depression happens and she sleeps. I call and I worry. I experience the emotional heavy lifting of a father. Twenty-seven years younger than myself, Sharon is the exact age of daughters wondering how much longer they will have to worry about fathers falling, forgetting, mistaking one day for another, as my friend sometimes does, her panic a passing storm in my ear. 

I try to guide her back the center of the road like a gentle traffic cop. My old life’s new vocation.  

At the end of her interminable sleep cycles, Sharon will always call. “How are you?” she’ll ask brightly. 

“Huh!” It throws me every time. “What do you mean, how am I?” 

She’ll just laugh. I guess she means, ‘let’s start afresh, no analysis please.’ 

 “Let’s meet at Tompkins Square Park for a little sunlight and air,” I’ll say. 

With her supersized container of coffee, we sit beneath one of the park’s remaining elms and do what friends do everywhere—observe and comment on the passing show. Tompkins Square Park, in the 1980s a hotbed of urban revolution, has always been a magnet for lost looking youths. They shamble past us, sometimes in pairs, sometimes with pets, everything about them tentative, children of our increasingly unstable world of climate disasters and endless wars, with the promise of worse to come. 

I ask Sharon how she became a Quaker. 

“The last time I got out of the hospital,” she said, “it was important to me to find a spiritual community. The Quakers were open to the things that were necessary to me. They worshipped in silence, believed in nonviolence, and welcomed me. No one put pressure on me. They let me be and I was thankful for that.” 

After talking, she returns to watching. A probing silence guides her watching. The silence of one wanting to know things about others, perhaps the very things they want to know about themselves.  

She and an associate run a phone support group for people with emotional difficulties, providing a safe place to be heard and supported, to feel connected. 

“I won’t miss a session, if I can help it,” Sharon says. “We have to be there for people. We can’t let people down.” 

A dachshund will pass us. My friend will say, ‘Look how low to the ground they are. Their backs have to do all the work because their legs are so small. Dachshunds are known to have bad backs.’ 

I give her hand a big squeeze. Her illness can close around her at any moment like a fist, yet she remains open to others. I am tempted to ask for her benediction for when the clustered infirmities of old age begin to close around me and a lame dachshund crosses my path. Will my heart open to its infirmity? I see Sharon at such moments as an elder in her ability to transcend her suffering for the sake of others who sufferer.  

She may not write much poetry these days, as the meds have undercut her creativity, but when I read what she has written in the past, I have hopes for a second harvest in the future: 

   Upstate Memory 

   An overnight 

  of goodwill 

  pilling,    

  fingernails firelit, 

 comfort buffed 

 to expectation 

 I script myself paternally beside her in some redeemed future, comforted.  

Robert Hirschfield is a New York-based writer and poet. He has spent much of the last five years writing and assembling poems about his mother’s Alzheimer’s. In 2019, Presa Press published a volume of his poems titled, The Road to Canaan. His work has appeared in Parabola, Tricycle, Spirituality & Health, Sojourners, The Moth (Ireland), Tears in The Fence (UK) and other publications.     

Remembering Is What We Bring: An Old Man Recalls An Old Friend

Richard Lewis: Drawing Water from The Children’s Well

An Old Man, A Long-Forgotten Pitcher, An Obsession Remembered

The post A New Friend for The Long Journey appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

  Ikigai—translated in English as a “reason to live”—refers to what gives a person a sense of purpose and joy. It has gained popularity recently, having been linked to the exceptional longevity of native Japanese, especially those living in Okinawa. Okinawans have the longest life expectancy in the world. Most remain functional late into life and continue working into old age until they are simply unable to work.  

 Ikigai recalls the ideas of Victor Frankl, whose famous book, Man’s Search for Meaning, describes what helped him survive his Holocaust concentration camp experience. Inspired by the Danish existential philosopher and theologian Soren Kierkegaard, Frankl believed that the primary motivational force of individuals is to find meaning in life. Kierkegaard believed that in the face of existential angst, a person needs to make an existential leap, reaching for a “will to meaning.” Based on this he established a new school of psychotherapy known as logotherapy.  For Frankl, logotherapy was very different from ideas of other famous founders of the psychoanalytic movement such as Alfred Adler’s “will to power,” which maintains the drive is to dominate and strive for superiority, or Freud’s “will to pleasure,” which posits that people are primarily motivated by the desire to avoid pain and satisfy their needs. Frankl believed that in finding meaning or purpose in their desperate situations, persons were able to survive the horrors and deprivation of holocaust concentration camps.   

 Ikigai is Japan’s age-old philosophy for a fulfilling life, which consists of aiming to find and do what you love; find what you are good at; find what the world needs; and find what you can get paid for. Other key ideas are to stay busy, start small, celebrate little achievements and pleasures, and avoid grandiose ideas. Ikigai also stresses the importance of strong family and community relationships. 

  So, what’s the connection to aging Boomers like me and my wise colleague thinking about Ikigai? Many Boomers reveled in the huge effects we had as the then-largest generation ever in America. Idealism and acceptance of wide ranging and profound cultural changes were the coin of our realm. We believed we were a special generation, committed to building a more just, free, peaceful, and harmonious society. This gave us a generational sense of meaning and purpose. 

There can be little doubt that throughout life, having a purpose and a reason for living is important. This can be more challenging and important as we experience the changes of aging. With retirement, we are typically not as busy and our lives are not structured by the sense of purpose gained from work and the drive to succeed and advance. In later life we often realize the need to temper some of our grandiose, loftier Boomer ambitions. As we age, we find ourselves needing to accept aging changes in our person along with the societal changes we experience within our diverse communities and accepting these changes with equanimity. Can we keep an even mind while accepting certain changes we don’t like, including disappointments, but still carry on with purpose and not giving up or becoming frazzled? 

 We can use the ideas of Ikigai—finding what we like and love to do, what we can do, and what we can do for others, our family, friends, and community. We can set simpler and attainable goals, celebrate smaller pleasures and accomplishments, and above all keep in mind the importance of finding meaning through purpose.  

Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington. He was Co-Principal Investigator of the SMARRT trial and formerly Vice President for Research and Healthcare Innovation at Group Health and Kaiser-Permanente Washington. With colleagues he co-founded the long running Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study in 1986. He continues research through the UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and other projects. He has participated in The Lancet Commission on Dementia since its inception. With co-author Joan DeClaire he wrote the well-received book, Enlightened Aging: Building Resilience for a Long Active Life. 

How to Expand Time as We Age—Create

Enlightened Aging—Finding Light

Rise and Shine — What Gets You Going?

The post Finding Our Ikigai  appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

“Are there other ways to get the tractor to town besides driving it yourself?” I asked Dad before going to bed. The late hour and residual jet lag were not optimal conditions for meaningful discussion but I asked anyway because I was anxious. For months, we had discussed, long-distance, his decision to sell the tractor and now we were at the point of disposition. How was “it” going to get to town? One more decision. 

“Yeah, it would cost about a hundred bucks to tow it,” he offered, with a resistant, ‘I don’t want to pay it,’ tone in his voice. 

My “Pop” is wired for doing things himself and when he can save a dime, well, it’s like winning a lottery bet. Equipped with mechanical engineering “know-how” and a good measure of initiative and devotion, he thrives on his list of projects. A self-described tinkerer, he is always up to something, especially around taking care of the house he and Mom built together. She’s been gone for seven years, now. 

While “know-how,” initiative, and resilience have served him well, he’s managed to get himself into a few injurious situations in recent years resulting in hospitalizations and rehab stays. His journey to honesty and awareness regarding his (evolving and devolving) physical capacities has been fraught at times with stubbornness, injury, frustration, and sometimes, a touch of foolishness. This weighs on me, living so far away. 

“Dad, I know you love driving the tractor, and I just don’t feel comfortable with the idea of you doing this.” I worried about the unpredictable impacts of a 10-mile tractor ride exertion on a person with chronic spinal limitations. 

He acknowledged my concern with a nod, but no words. We retired for the night. 

On some level, I knew he had already mapped this whole trip, the route, the rest stops, and the contingency plans in the event the old ’64 International tractor might take its last gasp on the way. This project had become a dream, imagining a “last ride” out on the road. 

Chowan County countryside is beautiful in springtime, with farm fields tilled, and being made ready for planting. Farmhouses, barns, and small family graveyards of extended relatives would mark the route. Driving in the country is a spiritual experience. You can go slow. 

We met at the kitchen table the next morning. His breakfast of choice, a bowl of runny instant cheese grits, a side of sausage links, and a cup of instant coffee, all prepared in the microwave, awaited him. 

“Morning, Pop,” I plopped at the table beside him. 

“Morning sweetie,” he returned. 

We sat together, quiet moments passing. Both of us being introverts, it’s a relief to not have to fill the space between us with words so early in the day. 

It had been five months since our last visit. Sizing him up, he appeared relaxed, and less achy in his body and mood. Having my husband and I around for the last few days already seemed to be “re-filling” his reservoir. Getting up to nuke his coffee again, he moved with ease. 

Before coming down for breakfast, I rehearsed my very good reasons why Dad should not drive the tractor to town himself. To be honest, I didn’t know if I had it in me to extend emotional support and advocacy once again (across the miles) because of a bad choice made. Besides, what responsible daughter lets her 89-and-a-half-year-old parent get up on a tractor? My reasoning seemed very sensible and justified. 

Finishing breakfast, I lingered at the table, waiting for any cues from him about our exchange the night before. 

“I’ve decided I want to try driving the tractor to town … I feel up to it … you and Fred will be there if we need to make adjustments along the way … I want to try.” 

Initially, the clarity of his declaration was disorienting. I was all prepared to do another round of pros and cons with him, but obviously, he had already sized me up and determined it best to make the call for himself. 

“So having it towed is really off the table?” I ask. 

“I want to try,” he repeated himself. 

I felt my exhale, all my reasoned thoughts and exhaustion give way like water that finally gets to tumble over a cliff edge, set loose. I was slowly realizing that he didn’t just want to do this, he needed to do this. Further, the power of his need would also require me to relinquish my own urgent need to protect him. 

Instinctively pivoting, searching for a new inner footing, I heard compassion arise from within: “You can persist with your protecting, raining on his parade, or you can yield, and let be.” 

“Well, okay,” I turned, looking directly toward him. “What can I do to help?” 

Things moved swiftly from there. Having my nod of “blessing,” Dad collected himself, calling out signals for the next steps to be ready to leave around 2 p.m. 

He climbed up on the tractor, his spirit and body moving slowly but with lightness and assurance. He pressed the ignition button and the old motor turned over once again on the first try, a good sign. 

Cinching the chin strap of his straw hat, he called above the engine noise. 

“I’ll see you at the farm,” he said with a smile, and off he went with a wave, clutch smoothly released, deftly shifting to second and then third gear before reaching the first curve down the road. 

We followed him at a just-right distance, meeting him at his rest stops with the watering bottle and hoots of enthusiasm. He looked so strong, relaxed, and SO very happy. And I felt so relieved and joyful, joining him in exhilaration for the fulfillment of his dream. We were all in all the way to town. 

Agency is the freedom to choose and to act. To support (allow) this free choice in one we care for, is an act of love. 

Rev. Harriet Platts, 62, retired hospice chaplain, describes herself as an urban contemplative, seeking wholeness, balance in the “everyday” of life. Her creative outlets include iPhone photography, particularly portraitures, and writing urban field notes about what she experiences in relationship to the natural world. She loves walking, reading historical novels, and cultivating her community of friends and family.   

 The Truth About Long-Distance Caregiving 

Harriet Platts has been providing long-distance, caregiving support tracking for both her parents for more than 15 years, with episodic, increased involvement, and over-the-phone and in-person visits driven by need, medical crises, and transition. Her mother died in 2017, and she lost her only brother and sibling in 2020. She currently lives in Seattle and her father is aging in place (at this time) on the Chowan River, outside of Edenton, North Carolina. They are 2,500 miles apart. Platts remains connected with her father by phone/texting most days, and in-person visits two to three times a year. “From a distance, I had a practice of writing-mailing cards with hymn lyrics written in them of some of their favorites. Dad and Mom sang at the dinner table, as was a family custom. I also often sang to them on the phone,” she says. Platts can continue long-distance care because of the robust circle of extended family, neighbors, and local support near her father. Other long-distance caregivers are not so lucky. 

According to the “Caregiving in the U.S. 2020” study by AARP and the National Alliance of Caregiving, 11 percent of family caregivers live an hour or more away from their aging or ailing family member, with many living hours away. Long-distance caregivers spend nearly twice as much on care as those with family members nearby because of the need to hire help. If you are a long-distance caregiver, check out aarp.org/caregiving for a wealth of resources. 

FOR WASHINGTON

Your Vote Needed to Keep Long-term Care Benefit in Washington  

Working Washingtonians, and especially those caring for loved ones who are sick or aging, should be on the lookout for an important vote this November. If passed, Initiative 2124 will increase costs for working people, including nurses, teachers, and firefighters, by eliminating Washington’s long-term care insurance program.   

I-2124 will send more people into debt when faced with expensive long-term care bills and private insurance premiums they can’t afford. And more than 820,000 family caregivers in our state will lose important supports and benefits that help them take care of their families and loved ones. 

 Family caregivers are the backbone of our long-term care system, helping with everything from buying groceries and managing medications to bathing and dressing. Caring for a family member or close friend is one of the most important roles we are likely to play in our lifetime. However, the emotional, physical and financial tolls of caregiving can be profound. 

 Washington’s long-term care insurance program provides some important relief. For instance, funds can be used to help pay family caregivers to offset lost income while they are providing care. Funds can also be used to hire homecare aides and pay for home safety modifications, meal delivery, or assistive technology. If passed, I-2124 will strip away these critical supports. 

 AARP, the Washington State Nurses Association, labor unions representing home health care workers, doctors, grocery workers, teachers, and organizations like the MS Society representing Washingtonians living with pre-existing conditions are all urging a “no” vote on I-2124. 

The Virtual Family Caregiver

The Dawn of a New “Age”

Life’s Completion

The post A Tractor Tale of a ‘Last’ Ride: ‘What can I do to help?’  appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

Despite being in my late 70s, I’ve been giving some thought lately to getting into local politics. Nothing too big or high-falutin like mayor or anything like that, more like running for a spot on the school board or a parks and recreation committee. I considered a city council position but decided it was above my pay grade.

Truth be told, the notion of running for any position is more than a little daunting. I am not a politician at heart and for the most part, despise them. Then there is the issue of my experience … or the lack of it. In my 77 years, I have had just one go at running for office, which was 64 years ago. Perhaps you will understand my reluctance to re-enter the political arena after you read my recap of how it all went back in 1959.

“Moss For Boss”

That catchy little slogan was what I came up with for my election campaign when I had the harebrained idea to run for President of the Student Council in 8th grade. A ludicrous notion at best. Let’s be frank, everybody knows that, historically, this position as well as the vice president and other officers are routinely held by the school’s brightest students. The brainiacs. And, in a lot of cases, the nerds. Cool guys didn’t care about student council and stuff like that. They did other things like play sports, chase girls, and thought a “C” average was perfectly alright.

When I think back now, the only reason I can come up with for running was to see if I could win. Perhaps I needed affirmation of my popularity. Or maybe it was because I was the only poor student in a household with three siblings who got nothing but As and Bs. Motivation aside, I wanted to win the election. So, run I did.

Luckily, my sister Pam, a talented artist, helped make me some nice-looking campaign materials. I put up posters everywhere and handed out flyers to anyone who would take one. I felt pretty good about my chances. I had to give a speech and became more apoplectic each day thinking about it until I had an epiphany: It dawned on me that I was a pretty good piano player—why stand up there on the stage like everyone else and deliver some boring speech? Play the piano and sing your speech!

Having committed to this novel idea I searched for just the right popular song. It was 1959, and Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” was at the top of the charts. The song’s structure seemed perfect for parody lyrics. Short, little bite-size phrases I could make work. The first four bars of the tune told the whole story—who I was and what I was doing.

Here they are:

(Think “Mack the Knife” melody as your read them):

Oh my name is

Larry Moss, kids.

And I’m running

For President.

I can’t remember the other lyrics, but it doesn’t matter anyway because content was not the issue here. Style was. The element of surprise, the unexpected… that’s what it was all about. The other candidates—all way better students and more presidential than me—didn’t have a chance. My so-called speech blew the student body away. I won by a landslide. It was a resounding victory of sizzle over substance. The classic triumph of entertainment over academia. And, simply, fun over seriousness.

However, the sh_t was about to hit the fan. My first Student Council meeting was a total disaster. It was an out-of-control free-for-all. A complete fiasco. Who knew about parliamentary procedure and things like that? Certainly not me. But that was about to change in a big way.

After my first council meeting, the two teacher sponsors asked me to stay and talk with them for a moment. One of the teachers, in a nice way, told me how a meeting should be run. The other teacher suggested I resign and let the Mensa-level vice president take over.

Even though I didn’t really give a hoot about being President of the Student Council, I was not about to quit. No way. We worked out a compromise and before the council’s second meeting, I was given books on Robert’s Rules of Order and Standard Parliamentary Procedure.

They also suggested I run out and buy So, You Were Elected, a primer for clueless, newly elected young officials like me. I took the advice and books to heart and with the help of a crib sheet I used in every meeting, I made it through my term without being impeached or recalled.

Being President inadvertently landed me in the October 8, 1960 edition of the popular Saturday Evening Post. Sociologist Peter Wyden had written a book called, Suburbia’s Coddled Kids, and the Post ran an excerpt in the magazine. One blurb described his book this way, “This thoughtful, witty, disturbing study of suburbia examines the citizens of tomorrow in their present role as coddled, babied, and overindulged children.” Hmmm.

Anyway, my hometown was chosen as one of the suburbs doing plenty of coddling. The magazine conducted a photo shoot, and I was photographed walking down a beautiful tree-lined street in Highland Park with some other kids. It was pretty cool to see my picture in a national magazine.

The following year, the school election committee established a new rule prohibiting candidates from leaving the stage, singing, or playing any musical instrument. So, while my time in politics was brief, I have a political legacy. Perhaps I should leave well enough alone.

Larry Moss is a retired advertising creative director and jazz piano player. He recently published a memoir about how playing the piano played such an important role in his life.

Grandfatherly Wisdom: Advice to Emery

My Third Act—And The Music Plays On

That’s What Life is, Isn’t It?

The post Run? Or Run Away?    appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

This political season’s biggest debate has centered around presidential candidate’s ages and if they are too old for the job. President Biden withdrew from the nomination but there is much we can still learn from our early summer “freakout,” as some have called it.

President Biden’s general demeanor and lapses during the June debate attracted attention and alarm, followed by calls for him to withdraw. Donald Trump has not been spared criticism about his general health and tendency to ramble, sometimes somewhat nonsensically. If he hadn’t withdrawn from the race, the president would have been 86 by the time he completed a second term, Trump 82.

The great unknown for the future of any U.S. president is to what extent their general health will be affected by the stresses of the job. Serious illness or accidents can strike at any age. But when it comes to the likelihood of age-related declines, we do have some data. Average rates of dementia start to increase sharply from unusual to increasingly common after about age 75. Other age-related declines and risks rise with every passing year. These include walking speed, falls and injuries, heart attacks, strokes, and other common conditions like cancer and Parkinson’s Disease.

As many of us enter and march through our third act I think there is a more general issue facing all of us and our aging society—the tendency to deny aging and its accumulative effects. We pay a lot of attention to so-called active aging, the importance of staying engaged, exercising regularly, and maintaining—and ideally improving—our general health and well-being. We emphasize keeping up healthy habits such as hiking, participating in book clubs, volunteering in ways that help others, promoting things we believe in, “making a difference” and making our lives meaningful. And this is all good and important. We want to avoid or minimize age-related decline and loss of abilities for as long as we can. But we are not immortal. Eventually, we all will experience loss and decline before we die.

In my book Enlightened Aging: Building Resilience for a Long Active Life, we emphasize building reserves to stay healthy and active longer, but also the importance of accepting and adapting to changes we wish we weren’t experiencing. I was on a sabbatical in Cambridge University in my late 60s when I began writing the book to summarize what we’ve learned about aging from our research, caring for patients as they aged, and my family’s experiences. Now, 10 years later at age 77, I’m faced with the reality of the age-related changes I wrote about and the more difficult task of accepting changes I didn’t want to experience and thought I might avoid. Rather than just building reserves to combat aging changes, I try to find ways that I hope will minimize the effects of the accumulating declines I am experiencing. Like others, I hope to preserve high levels of functional well-being and happiness, engaging in the world and especially family, friends, and activities in ways that add meaning to my life for as long as I can.

We talk a lot about aging well, but what about the importance of acceptance and adapting? Time will tell how this plays out for President Biden, Trump, and the future of the country and the world. We know the implications of the U.S. presidential race and its outcome for the global stage are colossal and unknown. We also know that for individuals like me and you, it is both challenging and a wonderful opportunity to accept, adapt, and carry on with meaningful, fulfilling, and happy lives as we get older. Aging well and accepting aging itself is a victory worth celebrating.

Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Washington. He was co-Principal Investigator of the SMARRT trial and formerly Vice President for Research and Healthcare Innovation at Group Health and Kaiser-Permanente Washington. With colleagues he co-founded the long running Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study in 1986. He continues research through the UW Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and other projects. He has participated in The Lancet Commission on Dementia since its inception. With co-author Joan DeClaire he wrote the well-received book, Enlightened Aging: Building Resilience for a Long Active Life.

Resilience: The Simple Truth About Living to 100

Be a Part of It

A Pearl Harbor Secret

The post What the Conversation Around Aging Presidential Candidates Can Teach Us About Our Aging Selves appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.

BY FLORENCE KLEIN

As I reflect on the strides toward gender equality, it’s essential to acknowledge the trailblazers who paved the way for today’s progress. My journey as one of Philadelphia’s first female stockbrokers and America’s first woman real estate developer—converting old factories into historic condos—stands as a testament to the transformative power of women’s voices and the ongoing fight for equality.

Growing up during the tumultuous years of World War II, I decided early on to take charge of my destiny. I challenged the status quo in male-dominated fields, while raising a family and pursued my dreams no matter how unconventional they seemed.

Some of my foundational principles come from books. As a child, I would sneak into the adult section of the Logan Library to find more exciting reads. There, I discovered The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. At 10 or 11 years old, I had no idea how radical and controversial the ideas were. The author’s goal was to present the ideal man and she emphasized the importance of being an individual, which was revolutionary at that time. And even though the hero was a man, I never once questioned that the principles she espoused would apply equally to women. A quote from her book, “The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me,” became my lifelong mantra.

Another woman who deeply influenced me is Maggie Kuhn. She fueled my passion for intergenerational housing. Kuhn was a passionate activist and feminist who founded the Gray Panthers movement in 1970 to combat social injustice, racial and gender inequity, and elder discrimination. Later she started the National Shared Housing Resource Center to encourage intergenerational housing.

Like Kuhn, I am an activist at heart. I usually do not wait to be called when I see a need. I move forward to see if I can make a difference. I started one of the first websites to assist seniors in need and continued to break barriers well into my 80s, such as writing and publishing my first book.

As we age, the most important thing is to keep going. Age is just a number—it does not define anyone. That’s why I keep moving—to renew my energy, passion, and desire to be who I now know I am. And there is still more to me.

Women’s voices, once marginalized, are now at the forefront of advocacy and change. The fight for equality has seen some victories—from greater representation in corporate boardrooms to leadership roles—and some recent setbacks. The journey is ongoing.

Our stories underscore the importance of perseverance and the collective power of women’s voices in shaping a more equitable future. We each have the power to create change. As we look ahead to 2025 and beyond, let’s carry forward the lessons and continue the fight for a world where equality is not just an aspiration but a reality.

Florence Klein was born in 1934 in Philadelphia, Penn. and graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She published her first book, Under the Hat—Memoir of an Unstoppable Woman Trailblazer in 2023, at age 89. 

What We Hold Dear

Weathering Seasons of Change

The Importance of Legacy Planning

The post The View from Here – How Far Have We Come? appeared first on 3rd Act Magazine.