A Daughter's Stories About an Aging Parent: Sharing Tips & Facts Learned Along The Way
I remain in a funny place after returning from Ann’s service in Minneapolis. Ann was my mother Ginny’s oldest friend who had recently passed. (Here is a link to that story. In an unexpected development, this is Part 2.) As I had mentioned, the service and weekend spent with her family had held many emotional…
As my blog often confirms, life is complicated, funny and always full of surprises. These past few days have been no exception. As a resident living on the east coast of Florida, I have been distracted as well as knee-deep in preparations for Hurricane Dorian. I had hoped to start the first week of September…
This is going to be a tough one. We’ve just heard that my mother Ginny’s best friend Ann passed away yesterday. She was 90. Ann and Ginny’s friendship began 65 years ago when their future husbands met at college. They raised their families in the same suburb for many years. When my dad died at…
Today I visited the “Reader” section on WordPress (my blog platform) to see if I could find other blogs with interesting stories about the elderly that I might be able to reblog onto my own. I typed in a couple of search terms, but struck out. Then I tried “old people.” There were a lot…
Today I’m in the mood to pull the curtains back from a darkened room and find the joy. Living through aging parent experiences is draining, it goes with the territory, but witnessing pure joy sure brings in a lot of light. I found an example of just such a joy when reading a Glamour article…
In an unusual coincidence, two different friends are holding memorial services today for a parent who passed away. One friend’s father died young at age 68 in Illinois and they returned to California with his ashes this weekend. The other friend’s mother died four days ago at age 100 and her service is in Pennsylvania.…
Since the launch of my blog, I have been asked a few times “why did you choose Leaving The Door Open for the site name?” For me, it fell neatly into a few categories. First, I wanted a well-known phrase for readers. It was possible it would be easier to remember and I was also…
It appears that the Florida Triangle is alive and well and actively swallowing everything in sight inside my mother Ginny’s apartment. Over the last several months, she has lost both hearing aids, a gift card I had given her for Christmas, a shoe horn, her glasses, a library book, a birthday present and a television…
Read more The Florida Triangle: A Look at Losing “Stuff” & Memory
I was visiting my 88-year-old mother Ginny one rainy afternoon and was doing her laundry. As I waited for two loads to go through the washer and dryer, and the storm continued outside, I decided to ask her an old question I had always been curious about. I was familiar with her childhood and being…
Read more How To Hold Onto An Aging Parent’s Favorite Stories
While searching for links regarding the elderly and memories, I found this timely article. Apparently, there is a nursing home in New York which built a kiosk featuring six ballpark scents residents can smell by hitting a button. Its purpose is to stimulate long-term memory through scent. With the All-Star Break just a couple of…
