For a few hours one day last week, I did not feel grief. Every other hour of every day, I did. Grief has been one of the ingredients of my life since my first haircut, when something I knew and loved was taken from me without my permission. When I was six or seven, I
Finding Meaning in Mourning Read More »
By Loretta Downs and Jane Lazar The Lake Chapala End of Life Care Community is a group of death doulas and grief counselors serving Lakeside expats. We are part of a worldwide death-positive movement that promotes the understanding of death as a natural part of life rather than something to fear and avoid. The modern
How Death Doulas are Improving the End-of-Life Experience in Lakeside Read More »
Death came closer today. She does not arrive on little cat feet like Carl Sandberg’s fog, though she can easily sneak up on a person. Mostly, she arrives when you have a pain that won’t go away, find a lump that wasn’t there the day before, or forget your most important memory. She’ll walk behind
From Is to Was: January 6, 2025 Read More »
Part 2 How I Keep My Pool of Friends Full Even though it wasn’t exactly funny, I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants. Doug had turned 78, and I called to congratulate him. He’s a Viet Nam vet, and a tall, sturdy guy who wears hearing aids and takes half a dozen pills
The Thanksgiving Day after my mother died, I sat at the table with a dozen of my closest family members. The youngest was my 22-year-old godson on his way to Iraq with the Marines. The eldest was my 91-year-old Aunt Vera, the last of my mother’s four siblings to still be living. Everyone was worried
My goddaughter is going off to college next week. She’s attending a school that is an airplane ride away from her home, her parents, and all her friends. In a video call with her yesterday, she described her emotions as excited, anxious, and a little scared. She was smiling, which comforted me. She spent last
The Power of Candlelight Read More »
Those of us who come to Lakeside are among the Olympians of Aging. On average, we are in our 70th decade of life. We are more educated, more informed, more affluent, more travelled, more active, and more independent than the average senior anywhere in the world. We are also mortal beings. In Lakeside, the systems
We May Be Fierce,But We Are Mortal Read More »
My new neighbor likes to cook. I do not. She also likes me. That combination makes me the frequent recipient of Nancy’s culinary gifts delivered in decorated bowls and colorful baskets. The other day she appeared at my door with two hot-out-of-the-oven herbed biscuits on a plate painted with roses, and a large container of
It was a week from hell. Leaving the house to walk the dog, I noticed a huge crack in one wall of my house that must’ve shown up overnight because I’d never seen it before. It ran across the wall outside of my office for about three feet. My eyes scanned the rest of the
Problems of Abundance Read More »
We bumped into each other as I rushed through the door at iShop. She was on the other side waiting to leave. I took advantage of the contact to share a delicious hug with Victoria Schmidt, editor of El Ojo. Unfolding our arms, she stepped back and said, “A lot of people are dying here,
