Category Archives: Aging

Aging and caring for the aging

Taking Down the Old Elm

How like a man

anchored to his opinions

but long past feeling faith

is an old

dead

tree.

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Small Honor

Today, I would love to stay here for a few hours, sitting in the shade, talking quietly and resting. I would like to spend some time talking about my father who died two years ago on this day, remembering fishing trips and working on houses with him. That is what I would like to do. Continue reading

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Fair Warning

Take a God like ours, a few good doctors and nurses and a bunch of people praying. Then add a woman who survived raising the four boys that she raised. Then… well, then, just don’t be too surprised at anything. Continue reading

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A Peaceful Joining

Her age, her history of colon problems and her recent episode of sickness have made her too weak for surgery. But her condition was worsened to the point that surgery is a lesser risk than the other. Such situations force families into decisions that twist heard and heart around each other, leaving neither at ease.
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Fresh-Milled Memories

I remember early autumns of my adolescence, helping make cider on the farm and in Kelvie Nicholson’s orchard, swapping turns at the heavy crank.

Tonight, for the first time, I miss my Dad.
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A Slow Planting

This body is not the substance of our immortality but is rather its seed. And no seed can bear its fruit until it has been planted. Continue reading

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Easing Over

It is never easy to let go, to know that the last conversation upon this earth has been had. Continue reading

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Hard Times

I look at him and see other old men that I loved. Men with hard hands and soft voices, men gentled by memory. Continue reading

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Walking the Old Logging Trail

The sun’s sudden warmth on my face
burns through the thin of faded shirt,
reminding me that I was young
years ago
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Look Over There

When we are made no longer subject to the nuances of this world and its ways and when all that causes death and decay has been done away, in that Day, we will know fully the joy that we have only tasted, that which stays.
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