• * The woman across the street and to the right of my house is a widow. She's not quite retirement age and neither was her husband when he died in his sleep a year ago.




• * I The man across the street and to the left of my house is also a widow. He and his wife seemed like the very "typical" retired couple. Their driveway holds three campers/RVs. Two years ago they were preparing to go on a trip, he was backing the RV out and, well, he ran over his wife - she did not survive her injuries. Since then he has wandered the neighborhood with his dog, talking to any neighbors who ventured into his path. He is lonely. He rarely has family who visit him and last week - his dog died. He is not handling it well.




• * TW's mom has numerous health issues and struggles to help her disabled daughter make it through the day. The stress of dealing with her daughter's health needs has taken its toll on her.




• * My mother has no serious health issues, yet, but she does sometimes struggle with trying to keep up with a very busy 2 year old grand son.




• * My father has had to learn to deal with a blown out knee and the fact that surgery has not restored the knee to the condition that would allow him to continue to play hockey.

These are the "elders" in my life. I've told you just a tiny bit about them and will leave you to imagine what the phrase "healthy aging" might mean to each of them. Take a few minutes to think about the "elders" in your life and what the phrase "healthy aging" means to them. How can you help them?

There are so many health issues our parents and grandparents face. And all too often, they face them alone. I was thrilled to see the new Grandparents.com site launch. Eons is another online social networking site for seniors. Online friendships can make life a little less lonely for our elders.

Without the weekly visit from family and friends, the elderly and those in a nursing home often have limited contact. These groups may find peace, strength, and solace in creating an online space to connect with others and make sense of their past. The appeal of creating a memoir or scrapbook of a life during retirement is a common cultural trend, and staying in touch with friends and loved ones besides the telephone or visits is possible with the growth in online networking sites and social hubs.

Before we delve into some senior blogs, let's touch on a taboo subject: Senior Sex.

Grace Davis recently blogged about seniors and their healthy sex lives. Unfortunately, along with that healthy sex life comes HIV. Have you talked to your parents, or grandparents, about HIV? Check out this story about a woman who has HIV.

Post menopausal, it didn’t occur to Rachael to consider condoms. And in retrospect, she would not have asked Sam about his sexual activities – there were things our generation didn’t talk about. Therefore when her physician put her through a battery of tests because of her complaints regarding sudden weight loss and fatigue, she was shocked when she tested positive for HIV.

Now let's surf some blogs and see what some of my favorite elder bloggers are talking about.

Grannymar says "I am a disaster"

I feel like I have a swimming pool of water in my ears. The left ear is worse than the right one. Last week when I was out and about I met an acquaintance, and we stood in the street to chat and catch up on each others families etc. The usual traffic was passing by and I realised that I was concentrating on her mouth. OMG! I was trying to Lip Read! This is a recent phenomenon. In fact I have only noticed it since my last stay in Cardiac Care.

Judith Taylor tells us about those times when everything breaks down at once:

I've suddenly found myself having one of those runs when everything seems to have a problem with functioning properly. It's not been the mechanical equipment, or the electronics this time, but the poor old body machine, that modern medicine can keep alive, but cannot keep free of ailments and impairments.

From Joy of Six, learning about life... in death:

I find myself thinking about this the most….and feeling guilty that her life had to come to that. It didn’t matter that much of the time she was medicated or asleep; but for spontaneous moments when she’d wake only to be confused by what was happening around her. It didn’t make me feel better to know that she was virtually unaware of life as she knew it in those final days. All that mattered were those times when she would wake up and I’d see the hurt on her face. It was the same hurt I saw in my husband’s eyes; the kind of hurt you're compelled to reach out and make better.....but he was in so much pain…we could barely touch him. I remember that all too well.

Next week I'll be blogging about assisted living and reitrement communities. If you've recently written a post about the topic, drop me an email at denise @ blogher . org or leave me a comment here.

~~Denise
Flamingo House Happenings and Fast Times @ Homeschool High