Aging Flower

https://www.facebook.com/61556024770758/posts/122146349600200825/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

My dear girl, the day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through.
If when we talk, I repeat the same thing a thousand times, don’t interrupt to say: “You said the same thing a minute ago”… Just listen, please. Try to remember the times when you were little and I would read the same story… night after night until you would fall asleep.
When I don’t want to take a bath, don’t be mad, and don’t embarrass me. Remember when I had to run after you making excuses and trying to get you to take a shower when you were just a girl?
When you see how ignorant I am when it comes to new technology, give me the time to learn and don’t look at me that way… remember, honey, I patiently taught you how to do many things like eating appropriately, getting dressed, combing your hair and dealing with life’s issues every day…
The day you see I’m getting old, I ask you to please be patient, but most of all, try to understand what I’m going through.
If I occasionally lose track of what we’re talking about, give me the time to remember, and if I can’t, don’t be nervous, impatient, or arrogant. Just know in your heart that the most important thing for me is to be with you.
And when my old, tired legs don’t let me move as quickly as before, give me your hand the same way that I offered mine to you when you first walked.
When those days come, don’t feel sad… just be with me, and understand me while I get to the end of my life with love. I’ll cherish and thank you for the gift of time and joy we shared.
With a big smile and the huge love I’ve always had for you, I just want to say, I love you… my darling daughter

https://www.facebook.com/100064719606803/posts/834373608729952/

“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Credit: Xacobe Casal, Portugal

"Your beliefs
don't make you
a better person.
Your behavior does."



photocredit unify/pinterest
https://charterforcompassion.org

“If death and dying aren’t readily talked about and normalized, how are people going to seek out the appropriate resources and get the knowledge that they need?”
- D’Monte Farley

D’Monte Farley is a Doctors for Dignity 2023 Intern.

Read D’Monte’s story here: https://www.compassionandchoices.org/stories/d-monte-farley

https://hr.umich.edu/about-uhr/uhr-news/make-your-healthcare-decisions-clear

Make Your Healthcare Decisions Clear National Healthcare Decisions Day is a nudge to put your choices in writing.

https://www.facebook.com/100064362450215/posts/675004867988256/

LOL LOL

Does Faith Flourish or Falter at the End of Life?
Earning the trust of African American elders in hospice and care at the end of life.

Home Page | ASA Generations Training Future Leaders to Address Mental Health and Substance Use Issues in Older Adults—The Health and Aging Policy Fellows ProgramBy Harold Alan Pincus, Kathleen M. Pike, and Brigitta Spaeth-Rublee

https://www.freewill.com/compassionandchoices?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=eblast&utm_campaign=202210_compassionandchoices_nepaw_soft_education&sourceid=1076829&utm_content=221018FreeWillEstatePlanningWeek&emci=392596e5-1d4f-ed11-819c-002248258e08&emdi=2e451dcd-414f-ed11-819c-002248258e08&ceid=1563901

Write Your Legal Will Online, Free & Simple | FreeWill FreeWill lets you make your last will and testament quick, easy, and completely free. It is a simple online legal will maker that helps you compile will forms to print and sign, or to take as a basic will template to an estate planning lawyer. FreeWill is built alongside will making experts.

https://www.thejoshuagroupconsulting.com/post/conflict-resolution-avoid-it-or-address-it

Conflict Resolution: Avoid It or Address It? By: Betty Gebhardt, LPC Conflict Resolution: a topic that is commonplace in most organizations, businesses, and teams. But why? Before we unpack this further, let’s start with you. When you hear the word “conflict,” what do you notice? Take a few moments and just sit with that word without try...

What is End of Life Care?: Changing the Way We View Advance Care Planning
Who I Am, Why I’m Passionate About Advance Care Planning, & Why It Matters

Where it All Began: How I Found My Passion for End-of-Life Care
As a young child, I’d often visit my great-grandmother in her nursing home. On the trips where I’d accompany my grandmother to visit my great-grandmother, I witnessed a lot of experiences that were bleak. In so many ways, it felt like walking into that nursing home was like walking into a room of people who were simply waiting to die.

Regardless of this pressing feeling, I loved these visits. I enjoyed talking with the men and women who lived there and felt connections with them. Even then, I felt the pull of this line of work–even if I didn’t quite understand it.

As an adult, I gravitated toward working with children.

I enjoyed it and loved being in the field, but ultimately, I realized that even though the system for children isn’t perfect, there are endless resources there. People are far more inclined to work with children, help children, and connect with children because they’re young, cute, and have their entire lives ahead of them. It’s less likely that people are drawn to working with the elderly.

I saw the sadness of this stage of life, and I was drawn to doing something to improve it. Aging and death are, simply, natural parts of our lives–to me, these stages should be celebrated, honored, and of course, cherished.

My time visiting my great-grandmother in that retirement home had a profound impact on me. That, combined with my innate drive to help people and my personal experience with an aunt who did not have the best end-of-life care, led me to this field.

As I began to navigate the professional side of end-of-life care, I realized that, for many, there’s an enormous disconnect between end-of-life care and quality-of-life care. As professionals, family members, and patients, we’re not simply dealing with one final stage of life–we’re dealing with someone’s entire lifespan, their whole life’s experience.

I realized that it wasn’t just end-of-life care as a practice that I was drawn to–it was the mission to help modify, reshape, and adapt what we view end-of-life care to be.
Changing The Message: How We Should Think About End-of-Life Care
When a child is born, we celebrate that natural progression of life. We soak up every moment–we throw showers and parties. We honor that time as sacred and special–it becomes a central point we all focus on, celebrating and appreciating every moment.

Elder care–and specifically end-of-life care–is subject to an unfortunate bias and negativity.

Too often, people (patients and their families) view aging and dying as a failure. They’re so focused on that next doctor’s appointment, scrambling to the emergency room, or providing medical treatments to things that are, in most cases, not healable, that they forget that aging and dying are natural parts of life. The fact of the matter is that we all die.

What if we didn’t view aging and dying as a failure? What if we stopped looking at aging and dying as letting ourselves or our families down?

What if we gave our elders the gift of honoring that sacred space they’re in? What if we got out of the mindset to stop pushing hospital trips on them, medical advancements, or external stimuli?

What if we met people where they were at and, instead of rushing them to the emergency room or forcing more treatments, we made sure their final weeks, months, or years were fulfilling and meaningful?

Here are a few major themes and ideas that should be more prominent in end-of-life care:
Instead of being on a mission to solve problems that potentially can’t be solved, what if we focused on a patient’s last few weeks or months with intentionality?
We should view aging and dying as sacred, meaningful parts of our lives. We should be present, intentional, and share that time.
As caretakers and families, we should focus a little less on the medical logistics of end-of-life care and more on what the aging or dying person wants. Do they want to spend time with their loved ones? Are they interested in focusing on hobbies they enjoy? Do they want to soak up precious moments with the people who mean the most? We should ask them what they want–not assume.
It is OK to accept that things are different now. Maybe our loved ones can’t go out and do the physical activities they used to, but accepting that this is a stage of life and is natural can make the rest of quality of life care a much more natural progression.
My Mission: Adapting the Attitude of Quality of Life Care
There’s so much I aim to accomplish in my journey toward helping others embrace elder care. But above all, I want to reframe the way people view the elderly or the dying. Death, like any other part of life, is a natural process.

Ultimately, I want patients and their families to understand that we can hold death and dying in a sacred space. We can meet people where they are, normalize what’s happening, and understand that aging and dying are natural.

People who are dying often do not want to be rushing back and forth to doctor’s appointments or emergency rooms–they want to share the time they have left with the ones they love, doing the things they love.

It is my mission to change the way we view and provide end-of-life care. This can look different for every patient. Sometimes it means:

Providing comfort care for those who are aging and dying to ensure they’re feeling their most comfortable and fulfilled during this process
Offering life reviews to help patients tell their stories, reflect, and share their knowledge with their loved ones.
Creating optimal solutions for our loved ones to continue doing things they love in the capacity that makes sense for them.
Meeting them where they’re at and providing them with what they want for their final phase in life.
No matter what quality of life care looks like, the key is ensuring that the patient’s wishes and desires are coming first. They’re experiencing a very natural part of life, and focusing on and celebrating that fact rather than avoiding it and fighting it with medical advancements can often help them enjoy a more fulfilled and meaningful end of life experience.

Aging Flower is Here to Help You With Quality of Life Care

If you’re ready to learn more about elder care and advanced care planning, need assistance with Advanced Directives, or want to chat about what a comfortable, enriching end-of-life care process can look like, reach out to our team at Aging Flower. We’re here to answer your questions–but we’re also here to show you how fulfilling end-of-life care can be. When you’re ready to talk, we’re here for you.

Lisa A Cusumano, BA, CMC
Aging Flower, Founder
Cell-631-388-9538
[email protected]
www.agingflower.com

Do you have a health care agent? lets start the conversations

WISDOM - "A child does not question the wrongs of grown-ups, he suffers them!" - Chief Dan George

BONSHEÁ – Yaqui Indian – meaning ‘out of the darkness into the light’

Posted by Coral Anika Theill
Author, Advocate, Speaker & Reporter
Mother of Lost Children
BONSHEA Making Light of the Dark
Website: www.coralanikatheill.com


A startling memoir of one woman escaping an abusive marriage and oppressive religious cults and trying to find "justice" in a failed system. Any one concerned with issues of abuse and injustice in America should read this book.

The price for my own safety and freedom in 1996 was an imposed, unnatural and unwanted separation from my eight children. The injustice committed against me is not just the physical separation from my children, but the willful desecration of the mother-child relationship and bond, a sacred spiritual and emotional entity.

Forcibly taking a mother's children, and then controlling her emotionally by withholding contact must be publicly recognized as one of the greatest forms of 'mis-use' of the American justice system and one of the greatest hidden vehicles for wide-spread socially approved physical and emotional abuse and control.

Order copy of Coral Theill's published memoir, Bonshea Making Light of the Dark at: http://www.coralanikatheill.com/ #!read-bonshea-making-light-of-the-dark-/c22am

Resources Our resources PDF and print-ready leaflets Our leaflets are designed to help everyone, whatever their situation, begin conversations about end of life issues. They present useful information in a clear and easy to read manner on subjects including making plans, writing wills, bereavement, talking to...

There’s a woman in my mirror,
And she looks a lot like me.
Though there’s lines around her eyes,
And her hair is wild and free.
She is plumper than myself,
And she is definitely grey.
Did I miss the day this happened
Has she always been this way?

And this woman in the mirror,
Has an air of something calm.
Like a tide that’s going out,
And a beach that’s soft and warm.
She has seen the world in colour,
She has learned to know the truth.
There’s a wisdom in her wrinkles,
There’s a knowledge brought from youth.

And she seems to move more freely,
As though released from earthly binds.
Is she made of something lighter?
Perhaps the weight she left behind.
Like the press of expectation,
And the need to yield and bend.
I like this woman in the mirror,
She’s fast becoming my best friend.

Donna Ashworth
Image by Ata Kando


From ‘the right words- when you need them most’
UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08BDWY9CP/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_

US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BDWY9CP/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_MykfFbHGYY6E7