book shelf - THE FOURTEEN FRIENDS GUIDE....

 

One great essential for helping spearhead change is to have A Great Idea.  A Great Idea whose time has come.  Alas, .The Fourteen Friends' Guide to Eldercaring was printed in 1999, 15+ years before its time.  With Ai-Jen Poo's just-published The Age of Dignity climbing best seller charts, hopefully this earlier gem will go into reprint, because it's a perfect companion read.  Better yet, now that they are in their 70s, the friends should update it!  

Confession:  I've only gotten about 30 pages into the book.  But already it has proven to be a treasure, a must-read book for all ages, from teens to octogenarians & beyond.  

The fourteen friends all graduated from the Yorktown High School, Class of 1962, but some have been buddies since primary school!  Every year, they reconnect for a week, celebrating friendship & sharing experiences advice expertise.  

One year, someone came up with the idea - let's write a book.

These are women I can relate to, making no pretense to any formal training in geriatrics or institutional elder care, but wise beyond what most specialists can offer.  Their great strength is their range of hands-on, heart-touched experience, offering real-life stories rather than empirical statistics.  

Sitting at my customary Thursday morning table at Hatboro Dish, tucking into the best french toast (sorry, Mom), with my constantly refilled coffee cup close at hand, kept smiling & nodding, reading their different tips suggestions stories.  Having been through the crucible of elder care, it was especially satisfying to see how the ladies treated the reader as one of their own, providing lots of lined journaling pages for notes memories stories.  

Stories stories stories - that is the soul of this book.  Not study-based data or scientific treatise or high-fallutin' expertise - stories & the lessons learned by from through them.

 

So far, the only bone I have to pick with the friends is that while they present simple, direct & effective "best practice" ways to approach elder care, being simple & direct isn't always going to turn out well.  Yes, it is ideal for families to provide mutual, if not equal, support when parents or other loved ones need a little TLC or a lot of care.  The reality is that all sorts of real & imagined, overt & covert barriers often hamstring families, making it impossible for them to talk about, let alone share, support for the loved ones & various caregivers.  

A lot of memories - most of them happy, all of them educational & ultimately inspiring - have been stirred over the past 24 hours.  The majority of the friends still live in or near Northern Virginia.  My first 2015 conference is in Falls Church.  Will I do everything possible to connect with at least one during my stay in Falls Church?  You betcha.

Stay tuned!