text: The Call to Get Going GET GOING! I don’t know if it was the middle of the night, under cover of darkness, or in broad daylight. I don’t know if it was by sea, in some rickety raft, or over land, in an overcrowded truck. I don’t know if the decision to leave was...
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  Aging in Israel: Re-imagining Nursing Home Care
  by Dayle Friedman | Mar 23, 2018
  Tamar Dashefsky got her introduction to life in a nursing home when she was 22 years old and working as a medical clown. She was dressed as a fairy, but found it didn't take magical powers to alleviate the suffering of the people she met. Tamar was distressed that a...
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  The Warmest Welcome: Aging in Sakhnin
  by Dayle Friedman | Mar 15, 2018
  It was important to us to learn about aging in the Arab Israeli community. Sakhnin is a city of about 30,000 residents in the Galilee region of Northern Israel. We were fortunate to visit the Sakhnin Elder Day Care Center. When we called the staff for restaurant...
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  Aging in Israel: Feeling Aging in Our Bodies and Hearts
  by Dayle Friedman | Mar 6, 2018
  Seventeen professionals from the US visited Israel last month to learn about challenges and innovations in the field of aging. Our first encounter with aging in Israel was the Holon Children's Museum, which offers an experiential glimpse of aging through its exhibit,...
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  There is always more we can do
  by Dayle Friedman | Feb 7, 2018
  Years ago, my family’s matriarch, Grammy Anne, lay in intensive care. The family was shocked and confused. Just last year this dignified, spunky 86 year-old had been taking college courses. Now, she was connected to tubes from every orifice, delirious and barely...
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  Subject, Not Object: Seeing the Person Living with Dementia
  by Dayle Friedman | Mar 13, 2017
  After a lifetime of ups and downs, stretches of peace punctuated by hurt and alienation, I thought this was just the way it would always be. My encounters with my Dad would be superficial, guarded; he would never really see or know me. I surely did not...
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  Choose Life: Embracing Existence in the Face of Mortality
  by Dayle Friedman | Apr 22, 2015
  “It’s all life until death.” Grace Paley Rabbi Eliezer taught: “Repent one day before your death.” Rabbi Eliezer’s disciples asked him: Do we know on what day we will die? Then all the more reason that we engage in teshuvah (repentance) today lest we die...
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  What Calls You Beyond Midlife
  by Dayle Friedman | Feb 3, 2015
  We come full, not empty, to new callings beyond midlife. Mary Catherine Bateson says that we bring with us wisdom garnered from experience, combined with energy, and at least some freedom. She calls this rich accumulation active wisdom. But how do we...
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  Contemplating Dying
  by Dayle Friedman | Oct 28, 2013
  The origin of the human being is dust, her end is dust. He earns his bread by exertion and is like a broken shard, like dry grass, a withered flower; she is like a passing shadow and a vanishing cloud, like a breeze that blows away and dust that scatters,...
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  Circumcising Our Hearts: Becoming Available for Growth in Relating to Parents and They, and We, Age
  by Dayle Friedman | Oct 28, 2013
  One consequence of expanded lifespans is extended years of relating to parents in midlife and beyond. While hundreds of volumes have been written about the demands and difficulties of caring for aging parents, relatively little attention has been paid to...
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  Sustenance in the wilderness: sources of resilience for the family caregiver
  by Dayle Friedman | May 30, 2013
  The terrain of caring for a dependent loved one can feel barren, like the wilderness the Israelites encountered once they left bondage in Egypt. We may feel lonely, confused, resentful, sad and afraid as we do what we can while our friend, lover, sibling...
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  Get Wisdom; moving toward the essential
  by Dayle Friedman | Jan 15, 2013
  Aging, I feel…is a process that is alive and happening, growing up and getting closer, moving toward the essential. —Debra Winger My late mother-in-law, Miriam, had a very fruitful old age. She did not climb mountains or work at a career. She did not...