FootprintsintheWind.com

We cannot as elder fill to the brim those we are eldering, but can hope sufficiently for the day.

:- Doug.

Teach us to fly.

:- Doug.

We could do a mind map about What is eldering, How one wanders into it. Wandering on purpose, on purpose of eldering.

:- Doug.

This is eldering: asking an adult child about the trajectory of his or her life: gently pointing to possible reflections.

:- Doug.

A goal is simply a want, a consumerist panting after, dressed up to dignify it.

:- Doug.

The key to eldering is to relate, to meet, with the whole being.

:- Doug.

Eldering takes a lifetime of practice.

:- Doug.

Some with dementia are tired and may just want to get away.

:- Doug.

Having a true conversation in the nursing home can mean meeting Daddy again for the first time.

:- Doug.

Trends and forces—make no mistake—are likely to swoop over, under, to one side, or to come and go like the breezes. They may invite counter trends and forces.

:- Doug.

Even if the other cannot, conversing can make you more whole.

:- Doug.

To converse with someone in dementia-land, get past your frustration. Be with this one, now, here—affirm them. Be here. Be kind. Hear.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1692

Mom’s flower bed
Won’t get tended this year
Dad is lost
Sis will plant the annuals
& I will weed
Dad is lost & needs our help
Our children will be calling us
& life does tug
Dad is becoming more lost
Mom’s flower bed
Won’t get much tended this year
Even less next

Please pass it on.

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The living part of us has work to do right up to the very end.

:- Doug.

To let someone die alone
and in severe pain
is a failure of medical (and human) imagination

:- Doug.

We can only individuate
in the presence of others

:- Doug.

Eldering has often been storying around
because humans innately know
the power of story to lead out among us

:- Doug.

There is power in story
because there is power in conversing

:- Doug.

The task of eldering at least in part is not telling a message, rather hearing a life.

:- Doug.

In illness we as visitor, as sufferer, are stuck in the pain and againstness. How might we free ourselves? The very how might be in the act of traveling elsewhere. Yesterday always fades in today’s new thing.

:- Doug.

How to live? Interweaving, immersed, loving.

:- Doug.

How are our narratives connected, interwoven, and interweaving?

:- Doug.

The road to this one’s being is through her or his stories.

:- Doug.