Tag: aging

Some of the trappings might change, but you at 27 is fundamentally you at 37 is you at 47. La plus ça change!

“Over the months, spending time with these more seasoned humans offers a perspective that is grounding, calming.”

“He thought he could live with the punishment of grief—he had done what his wife had asked—but the punishment of the law would be another matter.” Ann Neumann investigates why mercy killings and murder-suicides are on the rise.

Marlene Adelstein finds herself transported back in time and consciousness via an inherited painting.

“You see that you can never go back. And with this knowledge a peculiar grief descends.”

Not planning for death is killing me.

A child’s doll exerts a gravitational pull on every member of her family.

Jen Doll comes to terms with her inner teenager … or whatever.

Raising a teenager of her own offers author A.M. Homes a glimpse into her mother’s experience of raising her.

Jessica Berger Gross reflects on what letting her roots grow in at age 45 has meant, in terms of feminism and resistance.

A new essay and podcast series examines how attitudes toward age and aging have changed.

A dementia patient’s daughter begins to question her own grasp on reality.

One elderly man’s attempt to combat crushing loneliness.

As women age, they lose their “pretty privilege.” As men age, they just get more powerful. Chelsea G. Summers examines the imbalance.

A half-assed elegy for the Cool-Loser Dream Boy of Gen-X cinema.

As the daughter of a funeral director, Jodie Briggs thought she knew all about death. Then her dad almost died.

While recovering from an aneurysm, Emily Carter Roiphe discovers the hospital houses a series of alternate realms.

Sometimes death takes a torturously slow, scenic route.

Abigail Rasminsky dreamed of becoming a professional dancer. Then she got hurt.

Karen Brown recalls conspiring with her father in his final weeks to find some humor in the pain.

Do we carry pieces of our younger selves with us, even as we grow and change?

An obsession with an orphaned sea otter helps Marlene Adelstein process her grief over her Alzheimers-afflicted mom.

Georgia Cloepfil is only in her mid-twenties, but she already contemplating the end of her soccer career.

Kevin Sampsell bears witness to the ways in which Alzheimer’s has been pulling his mother back in time, and taking over her life.

And sometimes it’s the embodiment of the cages of wealth and privilege we build around ourselves.

As she neared fifty, determined to keep going, she became almost grotesque, answering her own needs and the wiles of directors eager to exploit her. In Nicholas Ray’s odd, beautiful, impassioned Western “Johnny Guitar” (1954), she’s Vienna, a tough businesswoman who runs a saloon and constantly faces down groups of armed men. Vienna is both an […]

Lost too often in the discussion about a cure has been a much more basic, more immediate, and in many ways more important question: How can we better care for those who suffer from the disease? Dementia comes with staggering economic consequences, but it’s not the drugs or medical interventions that have the biggest price […]

What I’ve come to count on is the white-coated attendant of memory, silently here again to deliver dabs from the laboratory dish of me. In the days before Carol died, twenty months ago, she lay semiconscious in bed at home, alternating periods of faint or imperceptible breathing with deep, shuddering catch-up breaths. Then, in a […]

Researchers are studying the residents of the island of Ikaria to figure out why so many of them live well into their 90s and beyond: Following the report by Pes and Poulain, Dr. Christina Chrysohoou, a cardiologist at the University of Athens School of Medicine, teamed up with half a dozen scientists to organize the […]

A reflection on a mother’s life, and how advancements in medicine have extended our life expectancy, and have made it more difficult for us to die: ME: ‘Maybe you could outline the steps you think we might take.’ DOCTOR: ‘Wait and see.’ NEUROLOGIST: ‘Monitor.’ DOCTOR: ‘Change the drugs we’re using.’ MY SISTER: ‘Can we at […]