Aging: Elderhood and Choosing Joy

Here’s a quick review with comments on two books which deal with aging:

Louise Aronson wrote ELDERHOOD in order to share her views about “Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, and Reimagining Life.” Aronson is a geriatrician and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.  She freely admits that “this book doesn’t always walk a straight line from here to there” and I did find it to be rather rambling.  Plus, since I had a digital preview (with no index and limited formatting), I found added difficulty in following her flow. However, her tone is conversational and comforting as she describes embracing a universal trajectory with a “third act:” childhood, adulthood and then elderhood, “the longest, most varied period of our lives.” Aronson’s writing is absolutely filled with stories and observations from her own life, and that of her patients and others. Just a smattering of examples would be her “summer of sickness” as a nine-year-old with a ruptured appendix at a sleep-away camp or comments on Bruce Springsteen’s view of turning old despite his almost daily three hours of highly physical entertaining in his mid-sixties.  Near the end of the text Aronson presents a care paradigm with an outline of ten assumptions (e.g., medicine and healthcare, while often used interchangeably, are not equivalent). It seems that she is inviting reflection and more research. Throughout, she offers a new perspective and acknowledges “powerful thinkers [who] have created an enormous body of work on old age that should have far more influence on our aging lives and policies.” Aronson’s text is both fact- and story-based, with about ten percent devoted to notes. ELDERHOOD received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, with the later labeling it “one of the best accounts around of the medical mistreatment of the old.”

CHOOSING JOY by Helene Berger is subtitled “Alzheimer's: A Book of Hope” and was inspired by the unanticipated positive results Berger’s husband achieved after his diagnosis of Alzheimer's. Berger says her “goal is to give hope and offer concrete suggestions.” The book is divided into sections titled Foundations (background and acknowledgment of shifting roles), Practical Approaches (Acceptance, an Active Mind, Creating a Healthy and Safe Environment) Interaction with Others (Aides, Doctors, Self-Care), and Looking Back (reflecting on the Power of Love). Berger notes that this text in no way implies similar success for other caregivers. However, reviews by caregivers are universally positive and appreciative of the helpful, hopeful insights which Berger relays. They comment on Berger’s belief, developed during her six years as a caregiver, to “fight the disease; embrace the journey” as a new perspective for being a caregiver. Her message is to regard this diagnosis as “another life opportunity to learn and to grow – to learn that we always have options, even if it’s only the attitude we bring to conditions that we would do anything to change.” She is frank and open in her writing, sharing hard-earned wisdom and saying, “CHOOSING JOY chronicles my real life experiences: the tears, the frustration, the uncertainty, the many mistakes, as well as the successes.” 

NOTE: SHIELD is the new acronym: S - Sleep; H - Handle Stress; I - Interact with Others; E - Exercise; L - Learn New Things; D - Diet

When All Is Said by Anne Griffin

WHEN ALL IS SAID is a fabulous debut novel by award-winning Irish author Anne Griffin. Set in Ireland, this was the perfect read for Saint Patrick’s Day, but readers will be transported whenever they make the wise choice to spend time with the main character, 84 year-old Maurice Hannigan.  In a reflective mood, Maurice muses about “quiet men, contented in their simplicity, sitting on porches, rocking on chairs, listening to radios and crickets as evening turned to night. Hands as big as shovels, but nimble as stonemasons’.”

The story takes place over five toasts involving stout and whiskies on a summer night in 2014 as Maurice reminisces about his childhood and his time with brother Tony, his children Molly and Kevin, sister-in-law Noreen, and recently deceased wife, Sadie. Maurice primarily relates a story for his son Kevin, saying at one point, “Mad isn’t it? There you were, my living son right in front of me, waiting to be noticed, but my head lingered with a ghost. My heart, missing a small beat of its rhythm. Not so unlike my mother after all.” Throughout the many flashbacks, there are multiple references to the Dollards, the local landed gentry and their own fraught family history. 

The tone is a bit melancholy throughout with too many untimely deaths and a believable mix of regrets, guilt, grieving, and love: “Loneliness, that fecker again, wreaking his havoc on us mortals. It’s worse than any disease, gnawing away at our bones as we sleep, plaguing our minds when awake.”  WHEN ALL IS SAID received a starred review from Library Journal. I highly recommend it.

Women Rowing North by Mary Pipher

I have been discussing WOMEN ROWING NORTH by Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia) with several staff members recently. Most of us had also read her piece, “The Joy of Being a Woman in Her 70s,” in The New York Times. There, she writes about the decades we have had to build resilience, noting, “Our happiness is built by attitude and intention.” Similar reflections appear in WOMEN ROWING NORTH which is subtitled “Navigating Life's Currents and Flourishing as We Age.” Pipher’s advice includes the importance of gratitude and fighting isolation by finding meaning in one’s life. She says, for example, “Our growth requires us to become skilled in perspective taking, in managing our emotions, in crafting positive narratives, and in forming intimate relationships. … building joy, gratitude, and meaning into every day.”

In a recent Wall Street Journal interview about her new book, Pipher comments that “in the title of the book, ‘north’ refers to winter and ‘rowing’ refers to the fact that it’s an effort, and if you are going to stay on course at this age you have to work hard. … If we don’t add new chunks of identity, if we don’t grow better, we grow bitter.” WOMEN ROWING NORTH received starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly (“a work chock-full of wisdom and consoling messages”).  Oh, and look for an updated (25th anniversary!) edition of Reviving Ophelia which is scheduled for release in June, 2019.