“Paula, how old is your mother?” my friend Kathy asked, causing snickers among the other third-graders. “She’s, um, (never pause in the middle of a lie), she’s 39,” I said. “She is not!” Kathy howled, and the group erupted in laughter. I’m a late-in-li… Continue reading
Former friends occupy an unusual place in our social orbits. We all have those people who knew us “when” — prom dates, pledge brothers, sorority sisters, college roommates, high school biology class partners with whom we dissected frogs. These are the … Continue reading
Stories shared around the dinner table or nostalgic anecdotes about “when I was a kid” often become rarer when a loved one living with dementia is eventually left with limited access to his or her precious memories. Family members and caregivers, strug… Continue reading
(Editor’s Note: Last year, Next Avenue featured a story on the Feet to the Fire Writers’ Workshops, based in Louisville, Ky., called Where Older Adults Write Their Own Stories. One of the writers profiled was Judith Conn. In honor of Valentine’s Day, … Continue reading
I went to lunch with my parents last week. I sat in the back seat, where I was 12 all over again, while my mother drove home from the restaurant and my dad “corrected her mistakes.” He really is the worst backseat driver. Until Dad’s macular degenerat… Continue reading
By the time I crawled into bed after seeing my first rock concert, it was nearly three in the morning, yet I found the energy to scribble in my beloved red diary. “FANTASTIC!!!!!!” I wrote in my loopy adolescent script. It stretched across an entire li… Continue reading
The noise of the blow dryer caused Deborah Aquilino, known as Deb, to raise her voice as she spoke in the New Jersey hair salon where she works. Her five-foot nothing frame was barely noticeable over her generous personality as she told me the story th… Continue reading
They come in all sizes and shapes. Functional things. Decorative things. Whimsical things. Beautiful things. Sentimental things. In the end, though, they are, just things — stuff that our parents leave behind for us to keep, sell or dispose of. I know … Continue reading