Welcome back to Ancient Wisdom, our Sunday series in which writers over 70 tell us how they are aging gracefully. Last week, Nicholas Lemann, 70, explained why he’s obsessed with his family’s history. This week, we’re doing something a little different. We’ve handed the reins to a millennial, 33-year-old Charlotte Grinberg, a doctor who has specialized in end-of-life care. She is also a fine writer; she’s written essays on death that we have found to be practical, eloquent, and inspiring. So we asked her to share her wisdom with us. Charlotte may not be ancient, but I think you’ll agree that her piece today is nothing if not wise.
I was raised by my paternal grandparents alongside my dad in the suburbs of Philadelphia, and spent summers in a small town northwest of Paris with my maternal grandparents. I grew up immersed in intergenerational relationships, often preferring to be in the company of the aging and elderly.
By being around old people from a young age, I developed a kind of superpower: I could talk openly, calmly, and directly about death.
In high school, I volunteered at a nursing home, writing plays inspired by the stories I heard from women as they played bingo and danced during tango-themed afternoons. In college, I became close with Lenore, a retired class auditor who brought me cookies and joined me for walks through the cemetery near campus. During my medical residency, I worked with the predominantly older population of Cambridge, Massachusetts, becoming skilled in counseling adult children caring for aging parents.
Recently, I’ve served as a hospice medical director, where illness, aging, and mortality are ever-present companions. My job has given me a front-row seat to how wildly unprepared we are as a population to confront the inevitable: death.
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Author: Charlotte Grinberg
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