Aging Parents Quotes

“The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.”
― Lao Tzu

“Failure to plan ahead is a plan sure to FAIL!”
― Karyn Rizzo

“Refire—an attitude of embracing the years ahead with enthusiasm rather than apathy.”
― Morton Shaevitz, Refire! Don't Retire: Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life

“Offering care means being a companion, not a superior. It doesn’t matter whether the person we are caring for is experiencing cancer, the flu, dementia, or grief.

If you are a doctor or surgeon, your expertise and knowledge comes from a superior position. But when our role is to be providers of care, we should be there as equals.”
― Judy Cornish, The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home

“I now urge friends and acquaintances to have conversations with their aging parents and within their families while their parents are still relatively healthy and of sound mind.”
― Lisa J. Shultz, A Chance to Say Goodbye: Reflections on Losing a Parent

“The older you get, the closer your loves are to the surface. She was breathing rarefied air, the ether you come upon at high altitudes. I understood finally how long-held grievances and petty smallnesses might get burned off, and pure creativity and humour remain.”
― Elizabeth Hay, Alone in the Classroom

“Never give up hope. If you do, you'll be dead already.--Dementia Patient, Rose from The Inspired Caregiver”
― Peggi Speers , The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love

“They rarely look at Baba -- the teenagers -- and then only with cold indifference, or even subtle disdain, as if my father should have known better than to allow old age and decay to happen to him.”
― Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

“Even though people experiencing dementia become unable to recount what has just happened, they still go through the experience—even without recall.
The psychological present lasts about three seconds. We experience the present even when we have dementia. The emotional pain caused by callous treatment or unkind talk occurs during that period.
The moods and actions of people with dementia are expressions of what they have experienced, whether they can still use language and recall, or not.”
― Judy Cornish, The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home

“I believe that most caregivers find that they inherit a situation where they just kind of move into caregiving. It's not a conscious decision for most caregivers, and they are ultimately left with the responsibility of working while still trying to be the caregiver, the provider, and the nurturer.- Sharon Law Tucker”
― Peggi Speers, The Inspired Caregiver: Finding Joy While Caring for Those You Love

“Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep with a mixture of angst and gratitude all at the same time. It is finally ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. When the time finally comes, we can be enveloped in a warm cloak of long-awaited acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet days, weeks... or years.”
― Connie Kerbs, Paths of Fear: An Anthology of Overcoming Through Courage, Inspiration, and the Miracle of Love

“People don't like getting older, but they do like changing”
― Tommy Wallach, Thanks for the Trouble

“Po nikim tak człowiek nie widzi dokładnie starości, jak po starzejących się ojcu, matce. To starość, która nas boli, z którą współcierpimy, na którą jesteśmy skazani, aby się w niej przeglądać i odnajdywać siebie. Może to dzięki ich starości przyzwyczajamy się i do własnej i z większym zrozumieniem ją znosimy.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Ucho Igielne

“Later in life, children are often reluctant for a host of reasons to assume responsibility over their parents, a reversal of roles that symbolizes mortality.”
― Caroline Fraser, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

“If your parents are getting old and you don't know how to bring up the topic of what to do with all the stuff, I would suggest you pay them a visit, sit down, and ask some of the following questions in a gentle way:

"You have many nice things, have you thought about what you want to do with it all later on?"
"Do you enjoy having all this stuff?"
"Could life be easier and less tiring if we got rid of some of this stuff that you have collected over the years?"
"Is there anything we can do together in a slow way so that there won't be too many things to handle later?”
― Margareta Magnusson, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning

“My dad lived such a beautiful life that I know I do not do him justice by focusing on the manner of his death....I think about how he lived,”
― Eboni Ivory Green, The 7 Pillars of Successful Caregiving: Things No One Tells You

“Three, 300, or 3000 - these are the number of unknown days, each too little and too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer, with death lingering in the doorway, but never quite being sent all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place.”
― Connie Kerbs

“Three, 300, or 3,000 - these are the number of unknown hours, days, a week, a year, or a decade, each far too precious little and yet, poignantly too much at the same time, to see an irrevocably declined loved one languish and suffer. That fear-ridden, irreversible release lingers in the doorway, but hesitates for reasons we don't understand, leaving us to weep a special cocktail of tears made of angst and gratitude, permeating us with some of the deepest emotions we will ever know. Finally, the release is ushered all the way in, to comfort and carry our loved one to that Better Place. It also envelopes us in a warm cloak of acceptance and peace that eases our own pain. It quiets the grief which has moaned inside of us, at least some, every single one of those bittersweet hours, days, weeks... or years.” Until that day of our own flying away, and beholding our loved one again, in that Beautiful Paradise.”
― Connie Kerbs, Paths of Fear: An Anthology of Overcoming Through Courage, Inspiration, and the Miracle of Love

“Even though people experiencing dementia become unable to recount what has just happened, they still go through the experience—even without recall.

The psychological present lasts about three seconds. We experience the present even when we have dementia. The emotional pain caused by callous treatment or unkind talk occurs during that period.

The moods and actions of people with dementia are expressions of what they have experienced, whether they can still use language and recall, or not.”
― Judy Cornish, The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home

“They wheeled my father up. "Hi Dad," I touched his hand, which was locked down under a thick restraining belt. His sweat pants were stained with food; the socks on his feet were twisted and wrong. "We'll meet you inside," I yelled. My father craned his neck and answered: "Two. Four. Seventeen."
The New York Times Magazine, LIVES”
― Lisa K Friedman

“To przedziwne uczucie odkryć, że się jest w wieku swojego ojca czy matki. Człowiek nieomal broni się, żeby nie uwierzyć w to odkrycie. Chciałby wciąż być od nich młodszy. Wydaje mu się, że złamana została naturalna reguła życia, że się jest zawsze młodszym od swoich rodziców i będzie się zawsze młodszym aż do swojej śmierci. I jak w dzieciństwie wydaje mu się, że oni są wciąż jego tarczą, za którą się chowa, mimo że ich już nie ma.”
― Wiesław Myśliwski, Ucho Igielne

“I told him I would go up there; he said no, no, everything was fine. I drove up anyway and when I opened the door to the house he was sitting alone in the kitchen, the kettle on the stove madly whistling away. He was fast asleep; after the stroke he sometimes nodded off in the middle of things. I woke him, and when he saw me he patted my cheek. 'Good boy,' he muttered. I made him change his clothes and then fixed us a dinner of fried rice from some leftovers.”
― Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker

“The significance of living longer is the caregiving never ends.”
― Joy Loverde, The Complete Eldercare Planner, Revised and Updated 4th Edition: Where to Start, Which Questions to Ask, and How to Find Help

“It hurts watching my dad smile at air, while aging in despair.”
― Grace Poeta

“When she was young, she thought he was old, and now that he was old, Alice realized how young he’d been. Perspective was unfair.”
― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow

“Tired of how it felt to know that her life was going to change and that she was going to have this enormous hole forever. Soon.”
― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow

“It’s also good to look for the silver linings when it comes to our families too. For a long time, this thought of being a grown-up kid who hasn’t left her nuclear family made me feel kind of embarrassed and like I was doing things wrong. But over the last few years, I’ve realized how lucky I am. The time we get with our parents is finite and, thanks to my long-term singleness, I have got to spend a lot more time with them than I may otherwise have done.”
― Nicola Slawson, Single: Living a Complete Life on Your Own Terms

“But for the most part we wouldn’t have otherwise got to spend that extended time with them in our thirties. For me, it really was a blessing in disguise.”
― Nicola Slawson, Single: Living a Complete Life on Your Own Terms

“His bridge partner of ten years arrives and brings him a pamphlet on holistic approaches to treating cancer. Has he met my dad —Jimmy Dean sausage's biggest buyer? The bridge partner asks me how my kids are doing. He thinks I'm my brother Christian. I tell him my daughter is becoming an accomplished hair stylist and colorist, which my niece is. Two more bridge players come up and ask to pray over Dad. I start to imagine a Christian rock group named the Fundamentalist Bridge Play-ers. Then his most foul-mouthed friend, who he has played golf with for years, stops by. He’s been born again since his wife died a year ago. He tells my dad, "We have to get you right with God," and forces us all to hold hands and pray over my dad around his hospital bed. Another friend comes and brings him Ensure. My dad has said a thousand times that he can't eat, but he is knocking down those Ensures. This guy asks me, "Is your sister Polly coming?" "We are coming in shifts," I say.”
― P. Carl, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition

“His bridge partner of ten years arrives and brings him a pamphlet on holistic approaches to treating cancer. Has he met my dad —Jimmy Dean sausage's biggest buyer? The bridge partner asks me how my kids are doing. He thinks I'm my brother Christian. I tell him my daughter is becoming an accomplished hair stylist and colorist, which my niece is. Two more bridge players come up and ask to pray over Dad. I start to imagine a Christian rock group named the Fundamentalist Bridge Players. Then his most foul-mouthed friend, who he has played golf with for years, stops by. He’s been born again since his wife died a year ago. He tells my dad, "We have to get you right with God," and forces us all to hold hands and pray over my dad around his hospital bed. Another friend comes and brings him Ensure. My dad has said a thousand times that he can't eat, but he is knocking down those Ensures. This guy asks me, "Is your sister Polly coming?" "We are coming in shifts," I say.”
― P. Carl, Becoming a Man: The Story of a Transition