- Terry BallantyneShouting TenderlyJanuary 9, 2016How to you shout " I love you!" and sound like you mean it? A reader wrote to me and told this story: "I am caring for my mom who has mini stroke related dementia. Her intellect and observations about life are still, on occasion, profound and moving. For a moment you feel you can reach out and make a true connection, and then the moment fades and she will be confused about what a calendar is for, or what month it is. When she...
- Terry BallantyneDirty Little SecretsDecember 7, 2015Our culture tends to romanticize things or speak in euphemisms about the hard stuff. Nobody tells new mothers just how challenging the 24 hour presence of a newborn is. It would sound ungrateful. We soldiered on in relative silence, and unless you have the luxury and the joy of a family nearby that consists of supportive women: loving and wise aunts, grandparents and a trusted mother, it is a daunting stretch those first months and then really the first years. Spreading the responsibility helps both...
- Terry BallantyneThe Dog FriendsJuly 26, 2015The Dog Friends One never knows what the group you call family will consist of. We are all so far flung from our natural extended family that in a crisis they could not do much for us. With a distance of 100 miles away or more , they can’t wrap there arms around you, make a pot of tea, call the doctor, or hold your hand. For those very important and immediate comforts ,you need trusted friends next door, around the block or a quick car...
- Terry BallantyneThe ButteryJune 8, 2015I took my Mom out for lunch today. I watched her marvel at the hub bub and pace at The Buttery and I can’t help but reflect on the world now and the world she grew up in. She once rode 2 miles to town on a cardboard box, like a skim board being pulled by two draft horses on a set of reins. She was a daredevil. And here she sat, almost terrified at the pace, but fascinated at the women with tats, the...
- Terry BallantyneThe CrucibleMay 23, 2015The Crucible As the number of people caring for an older adult rapidly increases, the conversation is, at last, bubbling to the surface. Questions of deep emotion are being asked. Because the pioneers who have been caring for a family member or PIN, (person in need), are no longer laboring in silence. They want to share, they need to share their experience, the wisdom gained and the changes in their own soul. One cannot cross the rubicon of washing a parents naked body, helping with...
- Terry Ballantyne
- Terry Ballantyne