Growing Older 📍

📽️ Videos

Adult Conversations

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Navigating conversations with aging parents requires balancing empathy with proactive preparation. Initiate these discussions early, ideally while your parents are healthy and independent, to ensure their choices are honored.

1. Document Medical and Care Preferences

  • Healthcare Proxy: Identify who will make medical decisions if they cannot speak for themselves.
  • Living Will: Outline specific preferences for life-sustaining treatments, resuscitation, and end-of-life care.
  • Daily Living Support: Discuss their preferences for long-term care, such as assisted living or staying at home with in-home care aides.
  • Organ Donation: Clarify their wishes regarding organ and tissue donation. 

2. Organize Financial Matters

  • Account Access: Location of bank accounts, retirement funds, investments, and insurance policies.
  • Power of Attorney (POA): Designate a trusted person to manage financial affairs if they become incapacitated.
  • Routine Bills: Create a list of recurring expenses, automatic payments, and digital account passwords.
  • Debt and Liabilities: Understand any outstanding mortgages, loans, or credit card balances. 

3. Review Legal and Estate Planning

  • Will or Trust: Confirm they have an updated will or trust and know where the original documents are stored.
  • Asset Ownership: Ensure titles to property, vehicles, and financial accounts are updated with correct beneficiaries.
  • Digital Estate: Document passwords, master PINs, and instructions for managing or closing social media and email accounts. 

4. Evaluate Housing and Safety

  • Home Accessibility: Assess if their current home safely accommodates mobility changes, or if modifications like grab bars are needed.
  • Relocation Plans: Discuss if and when they would want to downsize or move closer to family members.
  • Driving and Mobility: Establish a gentle plan for transitioning away from driving when it is no longer safe. 

5. Discuss Legacy and End-of-Life Wishes

  • Funeral Preferences: Clarify choices between burial or cremation, preferred service formats, and pre-funded funeral arrangements.
  • Ethical Will: Document their values, life lessons, stories, and personal histories they want passed down.
  • Personal Belongings: Ask about the distribution of sentimental items, family heirlooms, or photos. 
Map: Severence Hill Trail
Map: Gilman Lake

Navigating anticipatory grief

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I go out to visit my parents nearly every Sunday. Most of the time the meal time goes well, but I am constantly reminded that this might be our last time together. Indeed, navigating anticipatory grief involves a delicate balance of acknowledging your future loss while remaining fully anchored in the present moments you still have. It is a common experience when caring for aging parents, and acknowledging that these feelings are a normal part of the process is often the first step toward healing. 

Strategies for the Present Moment

Focusing on the present can help alleviate anxiety about the future and allow you to cherish your remaining time. 

  • Sensory Grounding: During your Sunday dinners, intentionally notice five things you see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.
  • Memory Banking: Consciously “record” details about your time together, such as your parents’ laughter or the specific way they tell a story.
  • Heartfelt Connection: Use this time to engage in activities you both enjoy, share stories, and explicitly express your love and gratitude. This can help achieve a sense of closure even while they are still here. 

Managing Emotional Weight

Grief is exhausting, and it is vital to manage how you process it so it doesn’t overwhelm your daily life. 

  • Grieve in Small Doses: Psychologists recommend “confronting and restoring”—spending some time with your grief and then intentionally shifting your mental energy to other things to give yourself a respite.
  • Acknowledge All Emotions: Give yourself permission to feel whatever arises—sadness, anger, fear, or even relief. Your sadness is valid even before the actual loss.
  • Creative Outlets: Journaling, art, or recording voice memos can help you express heavy thoughts without needing to explain them to anyone else. 

Building a Support System

You do not have to carry this burden alone. 

  • Honest Communication: Speak honestly with someone you trust, such as a close friend, sibling, or spiritual advisor. Sometimes simply stating “I’m already grieving” can soften the weight.
  • Professional Guidance: If the feelings become overwhelming, a counselor or therapist can provide specific coping strategies and a safe space to talk.
  • Caregiver Support Groups: Connecting with others who share this lived experience can reduce feelings of isolation. 

Prioritizing Personal Well-being

Caring for yourself is essential to ensure you have the emotional capacity to support your parents. 

  • Foundational Self-Care: Maintain a healthy diet, stay hydrated, and ensure you get enough sleep.
  • Physical Activity: Regular exercise, even a walk through a park, can help reduce stress and improve your mood.
  • Routine and Stability: Creating a consistent daily routine can help you feel more grounded during uncertain times. 
Terrain Map: Green Mountain National Forest Overview Map - South - Wide Screen
Terrain Map: Green Mountain National Forest Overview Map - North - Wide Screen

Ethical Wills 📃

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At times I think about my parents getting older.

Mom keeps mentioning she hopes to see the end of the Trump presidency, which in my mind isn’t far off, but also I’m well aware that its a sign that Mom probably doesn’t have a lot of years left. Indeed, I know that’s true, and time lasts forever until it doesn’t. It was only a few years back now, that Mom’s heart gave out, and while she eventually recovered, for many months, it was unclear that would happen. Dad similarly was out for a while after his heart had to be worked on.

One suggestion people have is the creation of an ethical will, which is non-legal document used to pass down spiritual values, life lessons, and love to future generations. Unlike a traditional will that distributes material wealth, this document shares your parent’s emotional and philosophical legacy.

Core Components to Include

  • Life Lessons: Share the most important truths, values, and principles learned over a lifetime.
  • Family History: Record meaningful ancestral stories, cultural traditions, or pivotal moments from the past.
  • Regrets and Forgiveness: Express peace regarding past mistakes, offer forgiveness, or ask for reconciliation.
  • Hopes for the Future: State specific dreams, blessings, and wishes for children, grandchildren, and future generations.
  • Expressions of Gratitude: Explicitly thank family members, friends, or caregivers for their love and support.

Conversation Starters for Parents

  • “What values do you hope our family keeps alive long after you are gone?”
  • “What is the hardest decision you ever made, and what did it teach you?”
  • “What are you most proud of in your life that isn’t written on a resume?”
  • “Are there family stories or traditions you want to make sure we never forget?”

Specific Interview Questions

Childhood and Early Life

  • “What is your earliest childhood memory, and how old were you?”
  • “What did a typical Saturday look like for you when you were ten years old?”
  • “What stories did your own parents or grandparents tell you about where our family comes from?”

Love, Career, and Resilience

  • “How did you know when you found your passion or career path?”
  • “What is the best piece of advice a mentor or friend ever gave you?”
  • “When things got really difficult in your 20s or 30s, what kept you moving forward?”

Values and Legacy

  • “What are the three most important qualities a person can have?”
  • “What brings you the most joy and peace on a daily basis right now?”
  • “If you could pass down just one core lesson to future generations of our family, what would it be?”

How to Transition Casually

  • Use a Prop: Bring out an old family photo album, a childhood toy, or a family heirloom. Say: “I was looking at this the other day and realized I don’t know the full story behind it. Can you tell me about it?”
  • Blame a Project: Mention a desire to document family history for the future. Say: “I realize there is so much about our family tree and your early life that I don’t know. I want to write some of it down so we have it.”
  • Ask for Advice: Tap into their experience when you face a choice. Say: “I’m navigating a tough decision right now. How did you handle big life changes when you were my age?”

Formats for Creation

  • Written Letter: A traditional, handwritten, or typed document kept with estate papers.
  • Audio or Video: A recorded interview or monologue, which captures their voice, expressions, and personality.
  • Scrapbook or Photo Album: A visual collection of memories paired with written captions explaining the deeper meaning.

It’s an interesting concept. Years ago, with my grandfather in his later years, we did a video tape discussing his experiences in World War II and his life experiences more generally. Unfortunately, I do not know what happened with the tape, though I suspect somewhere it it is stashed away with many video tapes in Mom and Dad’s house.

Map: Lester Flow
Map: Long Pond State Forest

Lately I have had such a case of wanting to keep up with the Jones

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It just seems like all my friends are buying home and homesteads, getting land, moving out to country and raising stock and families. Then I follow all these off-grid and homesteading groups on Facebook, and my feed is constantly filled with pictures of cattle and hogs, vast open spaces out west, Alaska, the true west and mid-west.

At one level, I feel like I am getting older and not making much progress. It seems like I’m still in my miserable little apartment, which is so cold and dirty, worn out and broken, but I like the location. I like the library and park, and choosing to go without wired internet. I am dropped the hotspot plan when I went back to working downtown.

But at the same time, I totaled up this evening the money I’m investing and saving on a weekly basis, and while it looks relatively small on any one account, it does add up when you add up the various accounts, especially over time. But it’s not where I need to be today, although I probably could put down a pretty good down payment or even buy a modest house, but that would require me to sell of many of my investments and deplete a lot of my savings.

I just don’t want to live the suburbanite life, with the big screen televisions, the status symbols of the SUV or hybrid car, the chemically-fertilized lawn, the neighbors right next store. And the plastic! I’d rather die then live in a house with vinyl siding and two car garage. My heart is not in suburbia, it’s in the open country, some of the wild places I’ve explored and even more so the places I’ve read about and seen on the Youtube. The small towns that smell like silage and cow shit, the farm country, the ranches and vast mountains out west. Or even the small-towns like you might find in many parts of New York in a more subdued fashion. Upstate New York is fine, but it’s expensive and it’s a land of red tape and waste.

Some of my friends and colleagues took the small leap, buying land out in country, and still commuting back to Albany-area for work. It’s a lot of driving, and much of the rural land around here, while rural is far more urbanized and regulated then what you might find in the wilds of West Virginia, Missouri or Idaho. Land prices are pretty high, especially for acreage, and there are still a lot of codes to be followed. Yes, I’ve been to places like the Southern Tier and the Black River Valley, or far reaches of North Country, but even the most remote and wild small town in New York isn’t like so much of world I’ve been learning and reading about.

I really hate to sign my new lease and the commitment it brings at the higher price for the next year, but I can’t make the numbers work to move. I’d love to own land, but it’s expensive locally, and I don’t really have enough money to buy what I want or would need outright. I sure like having the bus I can take to work downtown, the library, park, and wildlife observation grounds a short walk from home. And honestly, I don’t really want to spend my whole life in Upstate New York, when I’ve seen there are other places in the world and other places. But I feel like re-upping my lease is just kicking the can down the road — sure I have fun traveling now — but I also feel like I’m making little progress compared to what my friends and colleagues are.

When I Had Long Hair

Map: Harrisburg Roadside Camping
Map: Fishbrook Pond

The best way to live a long life is to live to be an old age.

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The average 18 year old will live to age 80.
The average 65 year old will live to age 85.
The average 76 year old will live to age 88.
The average 90 year old will live to age 94.
The average 100 year old will live to age 102.

Two things cause this happen:

Every year, there is a possibility of death. If you survive that year to be age xx, then you did not die.

Second, people who don't die in a particular year are less likely to engage in risky behavior that can cause death.

 

The best way to live a long life is to live to be an old age.

Map: Bear Pond Trail