Vulnerability and Connection
By Peter Biggs

In her essay 'Thoughts on the Meaning of Frailty,' Wendy Lustbader, M.S.W. encapsulates many people's thoughts on aging, "We have come to fear frailty more than death. We imagine being "put" in a nursing home, like a jar on a lonely shelf. Will a parade of paid strangers take care of me someday? Such images have become the focal point of our fear. Frailty coupled with abandonment has become our most dire existential dread."

Compassion & honor

My own journey of care for my now deceased father taught me much. I had emerged into adulthood a rebellious long haired hippy that was both incomprehensible to my parents and profoundly rebellious and disrespectful of them. Oh there were reasons for my rebellion in my so called "dysfunctional" family. However despite the fact that relationship with my father had been fraught with conflict and periods of estrangement, his demise into painful failing health, coupled with his expressed emotional need of my support, allowed me to see him with more compassion than I had previously been able to muster. the rest

Thoughts on the Meaning of Frailty -very moving!