Being Mortal

1 •The Independent Self Growing up, I never witnessed serious illnessor the difficultiesofoldage.Myparents,bothdoctors,werefit a ...

RichmondHobson,acivilengineeringstudent.Thanksto theGreatDepression,itwasn’tuntilsixyearsaftertheir graduationthattheycouldaffor ...

family, complete with a button-nosed Santa and their namesacrossthetop.Sheorganizedagroupthattookan annual subscription to atten ...

wasscandalized.Hebecameatennisenthusiast,president ofthelocalRotaryClub,andtellerofbawdyjokes.One of his proudest days was July ...

family.Whenweate,weservedhimfirst.Whenyoung peoplecameintohishome,theybowedandtouchedhis feet in supplication. InAmerica,hewould ...

father had lost all but two mortgaged acres and two emaciatedbullstoamoneylenderwhentheharvestfailed oneyear.Hethendied,leavingS ...

premodernworld,howhewantedtolivewashischoice, and the family’s role was to make it possible. My grandfather finally died at the ...

livedevenlonger.Sheandhersisterendedupspending their entire lives in the parental home. As different as Emily Dickinson’s parent ...

directionofourlieschanged.Whereastodaypeopleoften understate their age to census takers, studies of past censuseshaverevealedtha ...

markedly longer lives, tension emerged. For young people,thetraditionalfamilysystembecamelessasource of security thana strugglef ...

leftthevillagefirstforuniversityinNagpurandthenfor professional opportunity in the States. As he became successful,hesenteverlar ...

death or total disability. The radical concept of “retirement” started to take shape. Lifeexpectancy,whichwasunderfiftyin1900,cl ...

Korea,nationalstatisticsshowthepercentageofelderly living alone rising rapidly. Thisisactuallyasignofenormousprogress.Choicesfor ...

people—theyoungandtheold—awayoflifewithmore liberty and control, including the liberty to be less beholdentoothergenerations.The ...

ThenNan,visitingAliceathomeoneafternoon,noticed black-and-blue bruises up and down her leg. Had she fallen? No,Alicesaidatfirst. ...

2 •Things Fall Apart Medicine and public health have transformed the trajectoryofourlives.Forallbutourmostrecenthistory, deathwa ...

Over theyears, with medicalprogress,the bottomhas tendedtodropoutlaterandlater.Theadventofsanitation and other public health mea ...

congestive heart failure, for example. Instead of just delaying the moment of the downward drop, our treatments canstretch thede ...

Thetrajectorythatmedicalprogresshas madepossible for manypeople, though, followsneither of thesetwo patterns.Instead,increasingl ...

often for long periods of time, and regard that as a weakness ratherthan as thenew normaland expected stateofaffairs.We’realways ...