As I looked out into the beautiful colored leaves on the sugar maples outside my window and pondered this strange feeling, the voice in my head said, “It is fall in your life Marilyn – not just outside your window. It is your reality!” Until then I didn’t fully realize I wasn’t still 30 years old with all of life before me. The next thought was, “Oh good lord if that is true…. I’m facing winter! The winter of my life!”

Please understand that this book is written for all ages and seasons of life. For those who so very much want and need to be understood and for those who need to understand. And know that just as the seasons follow each other so do the seasons of life. I hope this book will give voice to help us understand that, both for others and ourselves. It seems no one has really prepared us for those change of seasons.

Each stage of life is never fully understood by those who have not yet experienced it but in order to have some level of understanding with each other and relate we need to try, and it is to that end that I share these words with you.

I have now experienced all these phases except the one that is coming near and that one I have experienced through my own mother and dear aunt and all those wonderful people who have shared with me in the retirement homes.

You see elderly people do in some ways experience feeling like a child again in that they reach a point where they must have others look out for them. This is much harder than being a child because we have known what it was like to be self-sufficient so we need a great measure of your understanding. It is very hard to accept regressing instead of progressing. To accept you can’t do some of the things you once did. To have to wait for someone to help you do the things you were once able to do for yourself.

And…if those around you don’t “get” that, it makes it worse by a hundred fold because that truly does add insult to injury. This is the time when you must reach deep inside yourself for a level of respect, patience, and understanding in order to not make us feel worse or rob us of what dignity we have left.

We may not have allot of time left to create some last beautiful memories together so rather than avoiding that topic or pretending it’s not so let’s face it full on and, with understanding, make our time together as wonderful as possible. It is my desire to create greater understanding by being as honest as I can. Some of these chapters will fill you with joy and hope and some words you will find upsetting but denial is not going to help us make the most of our time together, however, with understanding there are many things that can and will be shared here to help us navigate these, until now, uncharted waters together with love, joy, and a lot more great memories.

(To order the book you can go to www.Amazon.com  and type Marilyn Lahr in the search bar and it will bring up all 3 of my books.  I would love to hear from you.)Thank you, Marilyn