Footprints in the Windsm # 990

Footprints in the Windsm # 990

How do we infuse joy and love into nursing homes? Into humanly declining abilities?

We have a distaste for seeing people losing abilities after a lifetime of being more. Perhaps it stems from fear of, and therefore a wish to put out of view, our own decline. This might frighten us more than death.

Had an email exchange last night with a friend about this question. She said “I think the letting go of who our family members are while they are still present with us may be more challenging than letting them go after death.”

She spoke of the absence of rituals for this kind of a loss. Might there be some value in developing some rituals for this?

It is a reversal of the development process of babies, and perhaps not so much a reversal but a completion of the bell shaped curve of life.

What rituals can we devise to celebrate the graduation of a fully-functioning adult into loss of those functions?


Please pass it on.

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Published in: FootprintsintheWind/sm | on September 19th, 2009 | No Comments »

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