Tag Archives: elderly

Bloom Anyway

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

This spring, I planted sunflower seeds in my mom’s yard. I planted them in three places: in the backyard, alongside the driveway, and in a mostly-fenced garden area. The seedlings soon pushed their heads out of the dirt, then grew … Continue reading →

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Learning About Life From The Obituaries

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

Do you read the obituaries? Though I’m getting to the age where I probably should, I seldom do. Just as pedestrians tend to depend on others to look for traffic when crossing the road, I depend on my mom and … Continue reading →

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Ageism Through the Ages

Posted on April 16, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

Ageism is prejudice or discrimination against those who are middle-aged or elderly. Psychiatrist Robert Neil Butler coined the term in 1969, but of course ageism existed well before that. What attitudes did people have toward the elderly a hundred or … Continue reading →

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Doing, Being, and the Flu

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

There is doing. . . and there is being. Sometimes we are in the doing mode. There are checklists of things to accomplish, requirements someone expects us to meet. We keep our noses to the grindstone, our eyes on the … Continue reading →

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What To Hope For Now?

Posted on March 18, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

On her blog “Everyone Has a Story,” Bird recently wrote about hope in midlife. She notes that in childhood, we all had hopes for what we would be when we grew up, in our twenties our hopes had to do … Continue reading →

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Maturity and Wisdom: Lessons from King Lear

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

Adults supposedly gain wisdom as they age, but there are plenty of exceptions. Shakespeare’s King Lear is certainly one of these. As I wrote earlier, Lear foolishly elicits exaggerated professions of love from his daughters, disinheriting the one who is … Continue reading →

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Parenting Adult Children: Lessons from King Lear

Posted on January 26, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

In November I saw a Calvin College production of Shakespeare’s King Lear. Intrigued, I then read the play. Lear is elderly and wishes to step aside from the burdens of ruling. He has three daughters and plans to divide his kingdom among … Continue reading →

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“Mr. Holmes”–A Reflection

Posted on January 18, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

This isn’t a review, but a reflection. The movies that intrigue me do so because they explore questions like how we should live our lives, what makes for good (and bad) relationships, and how we come to be made whole … Continue reading →

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“I Grow More Intense as I Age.”

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Bob Ritzema

In earlier posts I discussed a passage in George Eliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss in which Eliot suggested that, compared to the young, the middle-aged are “half-passionate” while the elderly are “merely contemplative,” that is, without any passion at … Continue reading →

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Older Adulthood: The Second Great Age of Passion

Posted on December 12, 2015 by Bob Ritzema

I wrote recently about a passage in George Elliot’s novel The Mill on the Floss suggesting that middle-aged adults are particularly well-equipped to assist adolescents and young adults through their times of emotional turmoil. Elliot reasons that the middle-aged are … Continue reading →

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