Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: aging

  • Five Untitled Poems

    Simon Perchik East Hampton, New York, United States   Mark Rothko, No. 61 (Rust and Blue), 1953, 115 cm × 92 cm (45 in × 36 in). Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles   * Slowly the glass, half filled, half melting down for a slipper not yet hardened into light   is flickering the…

  • Age needs a graying goddess of prophecy and her name shall be Senexa

    Margaret Morganroth Gullette Waltham, MA, USA   The Libyan Sibyl, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Sistine Chapel Age needs a tutelary deity, a woke goddess for the Age of Alzheimer’s and the Age of Longevity. We all deserve a powerful, honored, and glorious crone, representing our values and our value. Here, transparently, before your open eyes, I venture to create…

  • Breese Nursing Home: an exploration of humanity and love

    Ellen Jantzen Newport Beach, California, United States   I attended a nursing home Christmas party at the Breese Nursing Home in Illinois the week before Christmas, 2010 and was very moved by the residents and their families; it was a life-changing event for me. Before, while visiting my mother-in-law, I would divert my eyes when…

  • All life is a gift

    “I am tired,” said Mr. Hale. “I’m fifty-five years of age, and that little fact of itself accounts for any loss of strength.”“Nonsense! I’m upward of sixty and feel no strength, either bodily or mental. Don’t let me hear you talking so. Fifty-five! Why, you’re quite a young man.”-Elisabeth Gaskell, North and South, 1855 At…

  • Those golden years

    Richard SobelKibbutz Revivim, Israel “I’ve only ever had one wrinkle, and I’m sitting on it.” Jeanne Clement was one hundred ten years old but cheerful and lucid when she made that remark during an interview. She may still have been smoking: she stopped only when her vision became too poor to see the cigarette well…

  • Tithonus and Eos

    Emilio MordiniParis, France The Pio Monte della Misericordia, a building in the historic center of Naples, is today a museum that exhibits important paintings such as Caravaggio’s The Seven Works of Mercy and many Neapolitan Caravaggists. Here the visitor may come across a large painting of a gorgeous, blonde woman rising from pink and blue…

  • Immigrants, all

    Eric Pfeiffer Tampa, Florida, USA   Poet’s statement: I am so lucky. My poems write themselves. I only listen. Immigrants, all Old age was a foreign country when I first came here, another language spoken, and customs hard to understand. But I have learned the language. Sometimes I even dream in my new tongue though…

  • Age and Aging

    Myron F. Weiner, M.D. Dallas, Texas   Age, a mere number, is neither enemy nor friend. Aging Stirs us from primordium Though maturation To our universal fate. Age measures our finitude Aging, our fortitude. Adding strength when young Stripping when old Of sensibilities Of strength Leaving only lassitude. The years are not to be feared,…