FOLLOW US ON...

CANDLELIGHTING

HOLIDAYS

JUDAISM 101

FEATURED JOBS
Post Your Resume

    Having explored the essence of caring for another person, we now ask: just who are these caregivers?  As family members, this includes us to varying degrees of time, energy and willingness.  Sad statistics show that often family caregivers burn out, then they themselves need the caregiving. So along the way, to share the load, many of us need to pay for help, whether in the home or a facility.
    Thus, necessity ushers us into the world of professional caregivers.  Who enters this field and why, and what do they bring with them?  It’s no secret, particularly in metropolitan areas that most caregivers are persons of color with a significant number being immigrants, many from the West Indies.  It’s also no secret that these are the only jobs they ‘can get’ that pay barely more than minimum wage and for which there is no shortage of bodies that need to be cared for.
    While skills are required, one always hopes for a level of TLC to be delivered.  Certainly, someone without formal education may have much to offer.  Many to-be caregivers have children or their own parents to care for and have learned, with no outside help, how to do this effectively.  Yet a skill set is required for paid professional caregiving, and whether a person is older and experienced or younger and just starting out, a course must be taken and a certificate earned—as either a Certified Nursing Assistant (basic level) or Geriatric Nursing Assistant (to be able to work in a skilled nursing facility).
    To whet my curiosity, I took such a course this past winter.  Many are offered at varying for-profit agencies as well as the community colleges. I opted for one at an agency ten minutes from my house and at times that fit my already working schedule.  The course (which cost $1200 including books and uniform) was 100 classroom hours, then 40 hours internship in a nursing home.  Of the 18 women enrolled, I and another represented the ‘over 60 set’, while seven or eight were barely past teenage years.  Others were in the late 20’s and 30’s.  Save for myself, all were women of color, with three being recent immigrants and a few other immigrants here slightly longer.
    The teacher, also a White woman, stated she had a M.S. in Nursing from Columbia University.  We used a textbook: “Nursing Assisting: A Foundation in Caregiving”, plus handouts, had quizzes and tests, witnessed hands-on demonstrations and then practiced our own skills.  There was a final test and need to perform a skill set before the Certificate was issued.
    What did one actually learn in this environment, and how does it apply to what residents in facilities actually need?  The skills taught were rudimentary—and essential: bathing, changing, feeding, dressing, walking, taking vital signs.  We are not the administrators of medication yet were told about people’s conditions and how to approach someone with weakness or pain, someone with I.V.‘s or various tubes, someone with hearing or vision problems.  By the course’s end, we felt like we could get someone up, bathed, dressed, fed and ready.
    The question loomed: ready for what?  What did the resident actually want to do that day and what possibilities were offered?  Nowhere in this basic course was any topic covered about the realities of aging, the emotional and cognitive changes that each person goes through, albeit in their own, very personal way.  Nowhere were we instructed in how to fully listen to the resident bothy verbally and non-verbally.  Nowhere was the whole person addressed.
    Fast forward to our 40-hour internship at a local nursing home.  The first day we were shadows to Geriatric Nursing Assistants (GNA). By the second day, we were assisting them; by the third day, they had us caring for patients ourselves.  To become a GNA requires 20 more hours in the classroom and a more rigorous state-administered written and hands-on exam.  At this particular site last February, each GNA was responsible for 11 patients on her shift for all nursing care with little, if any, other assistance.  For this gargantuan task, which involved being on one’s feet most of the day, bending and lifting, turning and pulling, supporting and balancing, continually changing gloves as one was moving around bodily fluids—the starting salary was $11.  I spoke to someone who had worked at this site for 25 years, and she admitted that she was not making $20 hourly.  Bless the spiritual quest of older Black women; that is what kept some of them going.
    And now we’d like for these caregivers to ‘relate’ to patients, also?  Shouldn’t this be the purview of activities’ aides and social workers?  The truth of nursing homes is this: it is the GNA who spends most time with the patient, the one who has the greatest possibility of interacting in all kinds of vulnerable situations.  Suppose this person had adequate psychological training AND time to actually focus on the whole person, then the physical caregiving tasks could be broadened to create a relationship that would help the patient to feel well-regarded and better understood and would likely ease the caregiver’s tasks by working with someone willing to engage with them, rather than solely a body as object.
    This is the next step in professional caregivers’ training that needs to happen if as a society we are to provide for the mega emotional and cognitive needs of an increasing aging population.  This is how we can frame caring for persons at the end of their lives in the most humane and dignified way. This is how any of us would want to be cared for.
   

    Given all the hullabaloo these days about baby boomers aging, Alzheimer’s becoming epidemic and caregivers in shortage, the question looms: exactly what is adequate care giving, and are people with these meritorious skills born or made?  In past days when many elders still lived with their families, it was assumed that the wives of these families knew how to dispense physical care and T.L.C. in such a way that usually no outside help was sought.  Was it solely because one was a relative that she was able to provide this?  Yes and no.  While physical care and semi-medical skills needed to be learned somewhere, what seemed to come with least effort was the T.L.C.  This was thought to be intrinsic to the relationship of care giver to care needer.
    Today we pay strangers to get involved in our loved ones’ most intimate functions.  We barely have met these people.  They are wont to get to know the older person now absorbed in malaise and oft times with verbal skills decreasing or non-existent.  If we’re expecting T.L.C., where could this possibly come from?  Praying for a Mother Teresa to enter our door would be one approach.  Alternately, we could adopt a vision of care giving not as discrete tasks but as a rarefied opportunity to engage in helping a soul transition from one life form to another.  Is this too airy-fairy to really motivate anyone to handling tasks that mostly have to do with transmission of bodily fluids?
    Try this—beneath outer appearances, what are most of us searching for in life?  I would say finding a way to have our individual life experience validated and being able to really get the life experience of another.  Ah ha!  A connection.  When we are truly connected, we feel a surge of energy, life becomes alive, and for those moments we are not in this swarm of flapping creatures all by ourself.  While an older person in the throes of dis-ease may not seem like a fount of energy, in reality they are a living, breathing repository of life experience, a time capsule of 70-80-90 years of history on this earth.
    Think of the strata of a mountain.  We see the granite on top, yet can only intuit the subterranean Pleistocene era.  The older person in a care facility whose chart reports that he/she is now “a diabetic with congestive heart failure and a super-pubic catheter” could have been a dancer, a romancer, a jokester, an avid hiker, a rogue, an adventurer, a trauma survivor, a faithful adherent, an agnostic, a radical, a soldier, a spy, a drum major, etc.  Those who believe in the intrinsic energy of a talisman, like the Blarney Stone or rock crystals, might approach these interspersed layers of life in the same way.
    We are seeking.  They have something to offer. But how might we actually connect?  This is where our ability to receive more than express must be part of our communication process.  Instead of asking the patient how he/she is feeling or trying to ‘cheer them up’, suppose we found a way ‘to BE’ together in time and space without needing to embellish or change a thing?  This would involved slowing down, breathing, eye contact and touch.  The life energy that is emitted through the senses can enable us to experience the essence of a person.  We can follow their lead and pacing and start to tune into a relationship that is not dependent on knowing their medical diagnosis.  What we can experience through touch, the words of a familiar song, sharing spontaneous laughter may do more for human connection and healing than myriads of ‘procedures.’
    The patient can intuit those moments as alive and meaningful.  While overall life energy and focus may be ebbing, there can still be points in time and space when a person-to-person link can flow.  This is the essence of heartfelt care giving.  It is not what the caregiver ‘does’ for the older person.  It is what they can genuinely share that enlivens and elevates both of them.
    When we tour fancy new assisted living quarters with high fashion carpet and advertised gourmet meals; when we investigate nursing homes that claim to practice “resident centered care” (what else is there?)—it is this issue of care giving that is actually most essential for us to attend to .  Are people working there just to do a job and count the hours, or do they embody care giving from the heart?

    “We want the same thing.”  My father spoke these self-revalatory words in the mid-1970’s when his forays into the world as a CPA brought the dawning awareness that Black Americans’ desires for a supportive job and viable family life were no different than our own.  This wasn’t born of some study of civil rights theory or even Jewish values as much as just a plain as day admission that all human beings crave and deserve a decent life.
    Thirty years hence, my Dad has now passed.  His personal growth expanded to having a variety of relationships with some African Americans he came to call his friends.  And yet, in many respects, their quest for a decent life has remained elusive.
    Now we have the “OCCUPY” movement calling for fairness based on a redistribution of wealth.  it also suggest that we—and the powers that be—bring some ‘rachmaness’ (compassion) into both corporate and personal dealings.  The laws are on the books.  The wants are duly articulated.  And yet, disparities in lifestyle are astounding and more than depressing.  We are quick to chastise those who use drugs, get caught up in gangs or who otherwise make ‘bad choices.’  But what about persons who make valiant efforts to do right and still get trapped in a vortex which somehow seems to be karmic of much of Black existence in urban America.
    Last week I went on a morning walk, having the freedom to plan my schedule to see clients later in the day.  As it was, even though in the neighborhood, i strangely got lost; i could not get out of the fields and past the fences I was now embedded in.  There were a few moments of panic as well as, truthfully, some exhilaration for riding the crest of this adventure.  I figured it out, an hour and a half later, then arrived at the lab to have my blood samples drawn.  I was going to chit-chat with the lab tech to tell her of my semi-stressful episode. But, then, after a query of mine about an unusual necklace she was wearing, she launched into telling me about her life.
    It was a life, that if most of us had just one of these factors operating, we would be consumed with stress, fraught with anxiety and obsessed with worry.  This life included a violent attack on her son, who had been working as a health care provider ironically to relieve the stress of others.  He survived but now has unending physical repercussions as well as grueling legal matters to pursue.  This man’s child’s mother already died at a young age due to a disease mostly endemic to the Black community, and thus, he was now caring for the child.
    This lab tech/mother had this in front of her mind as she came to work everyday, standing on her feet and very overweight, while taking blood to promote the health of others.  What were her chronic conditions (obesity,obviously, HBP, probably) that she battled with, that might shorten her ability to go forth every day and earn a wage?  She also wore a constant smile: “You never know what someone’s going through. So I smile at them.”
    I remember when I worked for Hopkins’ Hospital in the 1990’s.  We were told that mortality and morbidity rates were all higher for the Black community, sometimes not even lessened by increases in income or education.  it was thought that ‘being Black’ in this society brings its’ own stresses or that possibly the accumulated history of oppression and deprivation still enacts its’ toll.  So I saw a glaring example of this in that lab, right here in Pikesville, right near where I had the luxury of taking my early morning walk, where I was going to dare to complain to this woman about my mini-stress episode.  Fortunately, I had enough wit not to open my mouth.
    These are the issues in healthcare that yearningly begged to be resolved.  This quest for decency is what my father noted 35 years ago.  This mandate for fairness of policy and compassionate action is why people need to occupy…still.

    Our mega-family reunion has come and gone.  Getting together with persons I may have heretofore passed on the street but not known that we were related has proved the following.
    I have a cousin through marriage who is a union organizer and another, also through marriage, who is a gun toting NRA member. (Alright, they’re not my same blood, but can I lay claim to the social justice genes from the labor guy?)  I have a previous generation rabbi cousin whose volumes still fill shelves in Jewish bookstores and whose picture has a place of honor on homes of his loyal followers.  And I have a cousin, one generation younger than me, who is an expert Israeli folk dancer and practices Messianic Judaism.  My head wants to align with the inquisitive Talmudic mind, and my dance-therapist feet want to jump in with the dancer, regardless of what faith approach she espouses.
    Is this what’s required if one wants to claim membership in a family, make room for all disparities and find a way to amalgamate everyone?  So, we have the same gene pool, and as it turns out, everyone’s forbearers at some point owned a Mom and Pop grocery store. (Just think, if we had really united, we might have opened “Giant”!)  Does this really make our veins run thicker than ordinary and clomp us forever together as ‘mishpacha’?
    True, many of these people I would never have chosen or even run into as friends, much less those with whom I now share life cycle ceremonies. And yet, W-E A-R-E F-A-M-I-L-Y with all the nuances of meaning that can have.  Must we put a cord around our tribe and siphon ourselves off from those ‘unrelated’ others?  Are we really that different or special from those who did not have the same exact antecedents?
    Isn’t the emphasis on differences ultimately what keeps us locked into suspicion and distrust of our human kin?  And isn’t this just what the currently highlighted process of Teshuvah is to help us eradicate?
Teshuvah, repentance, is a return from our missteps to the central ore of whom we are supposed to be, of how we were originally created.  I think God meant for us to be part of the Family of Man and Woman and to regard all humans as our Divinely created brothers and sisters, not just those with the same last name.
    But how can we really digest these sentiments and learn to accept, like, maybe even love those who are so different from us, even gun toting cousins and those who practice a form of the religion widely varying from what we hold sacred?
    We are told that we need to recognize their humanity and realize that none of us is the ultimate judge.  Spiritual beings come in all manner of human form.  This, of course, is most difficult to get for those who have done us wrong.  My being treated inconsiderately, even malevolently, by someone automatically excludes them from my circle. I would NEVER treat anyone THAT way. I am ‘better.’
    And yet these folks still walk the earth, endowed with breath from God.  Hmmm….somewhere in the recesses and byways of the decades of becoming an adult, now living in the middle, I SHOULD have learned how to process this, to walk through the valleys and to come out into the bright shining light of full Teshuvah.  But it is hard. I struggle.  I’ve even reached for the Buddhist notion of equanimity, regard of everyone and all experience with the same light detachment, caring and feeling but not getting ‘stuck’ on the story of my malaise.  Still hard.
    No answers here. Just a very humbling appreciation for the years of traversing this territory and to realize with all the changes in my physical and psychic being that have occurred, this central core keeps demanding attention. So I go, from Elul to Elul, in an internal wrestling that apparently needs to go on for all our measured days. Now wouldn’t it be something, if after all the stretching and accommodating, through the fire of hurt and the alienation of differences, I came back, but this time bereft of judgment, to fully embrace, with all the idiosyncrasies, FAMILY—MINE, YOURS, OURS. 

    Last week, as a Sierra Club volunteer, I went camping with 15 teenagers.  They are recent Hispanic immigrants, attend Baltimore City Public Schools and are part of an after-school program in Fells Point sponsored by the Baltimore City Health Department.
    “Muy pequeno” English was spoken, so all of my bodily movement and facially expressive skills were on display.  This was challenging, interesting and seemed worthwhile to try to connect young people adrift in a society full of obstacles to a resource which is mostly free and provides a grounding and uplifting experience.
    Over Labor Day, my family of origin will have a large reunion to meet those with whom we may never have associated a face with a name and to celebrate the multi-generational journey of our ‘mishpacha’ on these shores.  A century from when my ancestors disembarked to these young people and their families pouring in.
    From my ager perspective in the middle, I see backwards and forwards.  That’s the thing; we expect there to be a forward movement.  For these travelers, leaving home to emigrate to a new land probably seemed like little or no choice, yet the implicit hope was to wind up someplace better.  They hadn’t counted on all the differences from their parochial culture to this wider world of mega-choices.  They wanted somehow to keep the thread of their known life alive while maximizing benefits in a place of professed boundless opportunity.
    Is this not how it is with us going from the land of early middle to middle middle to late middle and finally to what is preciously ironically known as ‘young senior.’  This used to be defined as 65-75, now who knows if 70 is really the new 60 or even 50?  Chronological time pulls us forward, but emotional realities cling to the past.  We step each day into an unchartered era haunted by the specter of decline of one faculty or another that we have depended upon our whole lives.
    And yet, tenaciously, we strain to hold onto our ‘real’ self, the person we have always been.  This is the young woman who danced at the prom, although now maybe our knee hurts after walking two blocks. But her essence is alive within us, the desire to be in synch with the music, lively, interactive, finding the lightness and flow of existence.  This is the man who was stalwart and decisive in his career and now has trouble figuring out which shoes to put on, yet who still likes to be treated with respect, even deference.
    Present circumstances do not drown out former ‘zeitgeists’ we spent years evolving.  We yearn for recognition of what once was most active and now still lives within.  For those who meet us today, we say come closer, look at me, behold my essence and relate to that, not to the sore knee or vague sense of focus.  This is what’s most imperative for those who seek to be caregivers to the elderly, whether relatives or paid workers.  They need to really see and comprehend the person within while being tender with the compromised body/mind that is their charge.
    Unless we stay put in our land of birth or never grow up beyond middle adulthood, this is the journey we all must take, going forward as dreams and the passage of time pull us and hoping to find consideration and compassion that amplifies the essence of whom we have always known ourselves to be.

    Aren’t we all so glad to take a dip in the pool when we’re hot and miserable?  Not everyone. One says he never learned to swim as a child. Another emphatically states she will not don a bathing suit.  These resistances speak to the twin perils of aging—being acutely aware of gaps in past development and assessing where one lines up now on a societal standard that is deemed impossible to meet.
    So perhaps past learning was ineffective or teaching was incorrect or the experience was a frightening one. Now there are pedagogic and psychological methods to overcome these, if one is open. We’re not talking Michael Phelps or diving; we’re trying to increase a comfort level.
    The bathing suit issue.  Tell me one woman who is completely satisfied with how she looks.  I still love the ad the Body Shop used to portray.  it showed a nude ‘tzaftig’ woman stretched out on a sofa.  Text read: “There are 8 supermodels.  The rest of us look like this.”  Exaggeration?  Yes, but this is how many of us think, that we must meet a tough standard; otherwise, we’re not allowed to be us.  And sure, cellulite, spider veins, dark spots, stuff that jiggles, that’s what we might come to after decades.
    But at this age, any age, we’re still God’s creatures and entitled to be part of life. The real criteria for engagement is up to us. In my teaching of creative movement at various camps, I have had five year old children tell me:
“But I can’t dance.”  Pathetic.  Yet, they weren’t hatched this way. Someone planted this dire message, and now they assumed the identity.
    Same with us now. Can we allow ourselves to get back to authentic desires and impulses underneath the social conditioning and past experiences of ‘failure’?  Alright, so we couldn’t do something back then; perhaps we were even embarrassed by our efforts, and others contributed to our shame.  That is tragic and untenable.  But more tragic is when we keep ourselves locked into the prison of yesterday ongoing still today.
    We are breathing; we are alive.  Life is movement and engagement. So, go ahead, put a toe in the cooling water, and let yourself be buoyed by the floating weightlessness which is how we came into this world.

    Encapsulating a history where I’ve seen inflation rise and fall, weathered other dire recessions and wondered about covering my next bills, I have respect for the dollar.  I’m far from my Dad who made $10 weekly at his first accounting job in 1940 and even from myself who was proud to earn $95 in the mid-‘60’s as a neophyte reporter.
    Yet, a dollar ain’t no spare change. And if aging gives us not just a perch to judge right from wrong but rather some timeline perspective, then it’s interesting to note where a dollar is spent these days and the import we bring to it. Economists call this ‘extrinsic value’, as different than the gold standard. So it’s all in the eyes and genes of the beholder, and when that spending beholder has lived 60 plus years, you could complain that money doesn’t buy what it used to or you might discover gems in one’s acquisitions.
    With age come reference points. Things always seem to be more or less, better or worse, not as much or even greater.  What excites us is not innocent newness but in the story we tell ourselves compared to another time and place.  This continuity gives depth and a way to place meaning for all we encounter, something that cyber age techies with all their inventiveness are years away from accumulating.
    So back to the dollar and how, within a span of a few hours, this wound up being a micro-decoder of my life through the decades.  All items mentioned here were a dollar even or adding a few pennies with the highest spent being two dollars.
    First purchase was a toasted bagel.  This allowed me to sit outdoor at the cafe, look at the lake, watch the birds and write on my yellow pad. There’s always something I’m writing, whether for the eyes of others or not.  It’s one way I feel alive, creative, connected to the past and hopeful for the future.  I always wanted to be a writer, vocation; now I’m a writer, avocation, and I’m grateful for the ideas and vocabulary that still come my way.  One thing I’m writing is the activities plan for a large family reunion we’re holding over Labor Day.  Writing and planing group activities, two of my favorite things.  How blessed to have time in the sun to do these.  I won’t get ‘paid’ for my efforts, but I feel full indeed. That’s a lot to gain for the price of a bagel.
    Then, I bought a newspaper, “The Afro-American.” It comes out weekly and I buy a copy each month.  I’m trying to keep up with a culture that was central to me for ten years when I did community work in East Baltimore.  From our mostly White, semi-suburban enclave, it’s easy to disconnect. But what I read about are the same issues of disempowerment, higher mortality and morbidity than the general population and a quest for just due which still seems out of grasp for much of two-thirds of the population of this city.  I reflect soberly on whether the efforts of my agency at the time made any real impact.  A chance at historical review for the cost of a slim paper.
    Onto a yard sale under sunny suburban skies. A sweater of pea green with tag that said “cashmere/silk” and “do not dry clean.”  Thus, the light brown stain would probably have to remain.  I bought it anyway.  It had glittery sequins sewn all along the edging.  It seemed like a gorgeous ‘schmata’, what Nicole Kidman might clean house in.  It was an indulgence, a reminder that old and good is still better than new and cheap. This could be my ‘social security’ if government belts are tightened.  A fashion shopper of today might have tossed it out.  As an ager, I held to the past to ride with me into the future.
    And then , euphony.  I heard these sounds as I was doing my grocery store rounds. They came from a shiny brass alto sax lightly fingered by a man standing in the drenching humidity.  Theme songs of the ‘40’s dancing into a stagnant day.  The background to my parents’ courting.  The foreground to me picking up a note of hopeful continuity in the chaos that’s become our daily fare.  I spoke with the player whose voice had the same smooth lilt as his tunes.  I saw dollars stuffed into his music case. I was glad to bend down to put mine in. A mere token to entry to a kinder, softer world.
    All told, I spent five ones and some change.  I certainly learned the value of a dollar.

It’s good for us; who can argue?  Every doctor and health expert tell us to pump that blood, stretch those muscles. It’s a good way to get up an get going, so we don’t waste the day. We may meet friends and interact, all good for the brain cells.
    There’s walking paraphernalia, sturdy shoes and inserts, wick-a-way nylon to dismiss sweat and heaven forbid, actual body odors, MP3 players to pipe soothing sounds through our ears. There’s walking indoors which calls for purchase of a treadmill or joining a gym which means having a ready way to get there. There’s walking outdoors which means finding routes with a minimum of traffic where we won’t feel too bored or get in a rut which could discourage regular usage.  All of this costs money, takes planning,  may involve coordination with others.
    What about the actual walk itself?  What is it like to propel our body through space for the purpose of being fully engaged in movement and aware of scenery changes as we pass by?  How can we make our walks anything but routine, rather journeys of wonder and discovery?
    Is this fantasy in this age when all territory has been mapped out and where information saturates our every life experience?  Consider John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, who pined: “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”  Or who saw fulfillment for our essential hunger: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to stay in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
    How can we avail ourselves of these blessings in everyday jaunts?  What about instead of taking a pre-determined route to allow your senses to lead you?  Go where the sun is shining down, where leaves are blowing and beckoning, where bright flowers bloom, where water runs and glistens. Even semi-urban neighborhood may have bits of greenery and byways where we can open our senses.  Stop when you see something that draws you, and really take it in.
    Breathe deeply and focus on what you see and hear and smell rather than organizing your mental shopping list.  This will clear your mind to be ready to take on the day with fresher perspective. Know that your awareness and full presence during the walk is what really counts to buoy your life energy, not the exact number of steps you talk.
    Perhaps you’re walking slower than you did; perhaps you’re more concerned with balance now.  But you are moving through the journey of your life. To quote John Muir again: “In the eternal youth of nature, you may renew your own.”  Have fun out there, step by step, smell by smell.

    In the global sense, we are all aging after we take our first breath.  In a more specific sense, we usually think of aging as a period of decline after we hit our peak.  In the most individual sense, this can vary greatly for each of us.  On one hand, we claim personal perrogative in deciding how to act and categorize ourself; on the other hand, ‘limitations’  step in to define us.  Which is correct—our self-assertion or the realities of time passing?  Who gets to decide where each of us is in this aging process and what is ‘appropriate’ behavior, choices or planning?
    The ‘aging industry’ is huge.  For every iota of our existence, there is a product, a service, a program, an institution that seeks to lure us to eat, to wear, to engage in activity, to invest or to live in such a way as it prescribes.  What’s behind all this? Is it just money making for the vendors, or can the offerings be helpful, even life-sustaining?
How do we evaluate what’s out there, and how may we assess ourselves to know our real needs as we proceed in the inevitable trek of aging?
    A quest for wisdom is urged. Over years of working with aging/aged persons, being involved with some of their institutions, acting as a caregiver for parents and now entering into the ‘senior’ realm myself, I see an imperative to discern underlying thoughts and feelings about aging each of us holds.  Otherwise, we may blithely go down a path that we have not consciously chosen and which does not have our best interests at heart.
    Thus, this blog will make every earnest attempt to filter through words, slick marketing ploys and all messages sent our way that attempt to pull us into the world of senior products and services.  Its’ aim is to get to the root of guiding principles and philosophy so that each of us, in full consciousness, can decide what is our best, our healthiest, our most satisfying course of action for as long as we each shall live.