Near Death, The Nuns Contemplate The Other Side

Photographer Mae Ryan interviews the Sisters of the Convent of Mary the Queen, a home for aging nuns in Yonkers, New York.

Life Stories: Seeing The End

Since we're effectively "seeing the end" of 2010 today, I thought it would be an appropriate way to close out the year with the delightful story of 103-year-old hospital volunteer Lucille Pacaud produced by Phil Carpenter.

As Long As We Both Shall Live

Click here to view a photo essay on long-married couples in America by Robert Fass.

The Sandwich Generation

Filmmaker-photographer couple Julie Winokur and Ed Kashi were busy pursuing their careers and raising two children when Winokur's 83-year-old father, Herbie, became too infirm to care for himself.

At that moment they joined some twenty million other Americans who make up the sandwich generation, those who find themselves responsible for the care of both their children and their aging parents.

Authors of the book "Aging in America: The Years Ahead," which chronicles the country's fastest-growing segment of the population, Winokur and Kashi decided to tell their own story as they took on the care of Winokur's father. In The Sandwich Generation, they have created an honest, intimate account of their own shifting and challenging responsibilities, as well as some of their unexpected joys.

Friends For Life

Warren DeWitt was a 76-year-old unmarried gentleman who lived alone. 90-year-old Arden Peters was struggling to care for his Alzheimer-stricken wife. When the two men met over breakfast at a local Wal-Mart one morning, they struck up a friendship that would ultimately ease the burden of old age for both of them.

Friends for Life is an excerpt of Aging in America: The Years Ahead, a groundbreaking, many-faceted film by multimedia innovators Ed Kashi and Julie Winokur. In it, they explore the various challenges faced by the fastest-growing segment of the American population. As Arden says, "When you get this old you don't look forward — you just live day to day."

Seeing Alzeimers Differently

A photo essay on Alzheimer's produced by Cathy Greenblat and duckrabbit.

Days With My Father

I've had the privilege of spending the past week with my parents in my hometown of Victoria, BC.  I was especially grateful to be here today on the 4th of July to celebrate my father's 90th birthday.  Although his mind remains sharp, it's tough watching him deteriorate physically as he no longer can hear well enough to engage in family banter and finds it very difficult to ambulate without aid.

Phillip Toledano explored  the concept of watching someone you love slowly fade in his thought provoking photographic essay Days With My  Father.  

Happy Birthday Dad.

Living Fully

Staff and patient voices tell the story of the Hospice & Palliative Care Center of Alamance-Caswell in Burlington, NC.