Author Archives: MarthaJohnson

And Life Goes On…

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The ups and downs continue.  In my eagerness to finally reflect in a post, I note that I last communicated a very long time ago. Seven months actually. Now 86, here I am.  Last August 2025, I was stopped cold by an unnecessarily self-inflicted wounding from operating my scooter within my apartment.  Not a serious wounding except to the skin on my leg, but serious enough to require 6 weeks of “wound care” visits and a near daily visiting nurse to do the re-bandaging.  

However, as it is in my life,  miracles  still exist.  A friend offered to give me Reiki Energy sessions, something I had not experienced before. At the end of my medical treatment, every single one of the nurses who cared for me, said the same thing: “I have never seen a wound like this heal so quickly.”  So my choices for alternative medical assistance continue to give benefit.  And I still wish that Western Medicine would open their minds to accept, teach, and regularly advise these alternatives.

Reflection on my 86 years of life continues. While somewhat tedious, I am enjoying cleaning out my files, reminding myself of my very satisfying  lifetime choices.  While no one may ever care to read these voluminous files, I am left to summarize.  Through books and videos, perhaps the next generation would like to know “Who was this Aunt Martha, Step mother, Grandmother, anyway?” 

Twelve years ago,  at 74, I entered what I now consider to be my fourth and final  chapter of life. This chapter is challenging. Particularly the process of enduring/welcoming the little by little diminishments and the shifts in perspective that are part of the aging process.   I hope to gather these perspectives for a final memoir…Encountering Age…Without a Map! 

 Yes, I am changing and the world is changing around me.  Never before a political activist, today I am wanting to join those protesting the variety of authoritarian illegalities on the part of our current American President.  Who would have thought that I’d be taking my walker  and joining the millions of people across the country for the third No Kings Rally in my town. 

Life journeys differ for everyone.  We learn, we grow, we feel pain and sadness, we learn and grow some more. We experience changes, live through transitions, and end up where we never imagined. Aging is a part of all of our journeys.  And little, by little, if we choose, we pay attention

May our reflections help us make sense of our tenure on this planet.

 

6 Months Later…

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It’s been a long hiatus. But somehow I’m allowing part of myself to resurface.  I’m giving my 10-year-old website  meetmarthajohnson.com an update.  Or at at least I’m refurbishing a bit of it to accommodate what I would like to leave behind.  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll start contributing a monthly blog…

After successfully battling sciatica which took months, I’m enjoying my daily swims at our pool and restarting a daily walk with the “up walker”. The miracles continue to amaze.  I somehow lucked out and have been named “Author of the Month” at the Northampton Senior Center.  On September 30 I’ll be sharing my Musings Along the Way, registration required.

Another one of my joys is Happier Valley Comedy, the Hadley Improv group. Haven’t been for about a year and it feels so good to deeply laugh uproariously at their silliness.

So…life goes on. The reflection, sorting, and tossing, is mostly satisfying, particularly when I discover things about which I’d forgotten .  And, last month, my niece (sadly caught up in the USAID chaos)  came up from the Cape to meet with my health care proxies…one more thing that gets crossed off the list.

.What’s “up” sometimes goes “down”, but always seem to come “up” again.  Good to notice. I probably have something to do with that.

“We are not broken, we are just unfinished.”    Rachel Naomi Remen  

 

 

 

 

Musing On Mortality

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Musing On Mortality

I woke up this morning with “dying” on my mind. Before you worry about me, please know that I am OK. I swim 3 times a week at the YMCA, and drive my hand-controlled car to get there. I’m an active participant in many programs at my senior residence.

But, my recent  Cat Scan detected something in my lung (my doctors and I have been watching this for several years;   the biopsy continues to turn up nothing to worry about). Arranging to get to my 6:30 AM hospital appointment is almost worse than the procedure.

At 85, I’ve had a good life.  And, I’d like for it to end well. The problem is that it’s not so easy in our current society to find folks who are willing to engage in the conversation about how to craft a meaningful  end-of-life journey.   I believe that a “good death” is possible. For myself and other solo agers like me, it will take preparation, support, and dialogue with interested others.

Not too long ago,  death for me  was a more abstract  and less personal issue.  I remember my own initiation 9 years ago when I dared to propose a new program for discussion at the local senior center:   “What’s a good death and how can I have one?” I found my courage, took the leap and inaugurated this new 3-session offering.   Surprise!   It was our most well attended series. Although at that time I didn’t feel that I had any particular expertise to offer,  what I did have was the ability to create a space for honest explorations where we could share our questions, answers and fears.  We all learned from each other.

Now, 9 years later, I just enrolled in a book club zoom discussion on Achieving A Good Death:  A Practical Guide to the End of Life, by Chris Palmer.  In our first organizing meeting, I was pleased to discover that our newly forming group included “death doulas”, supporters of “Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking,” caregivers and hospice volunteers, discussion leaders of all kinds, and some novices. What we all seem to want was a safe place to a) clarify  the elements of the “good death” we wish for and b) learn how to raise these  discussions with family, friends, and our communities. 

Like any major personal or professional goal throughout our lives, creating what we want takes clarity of intention, bravery, and conversation with both family and friends.   Given that my current goal is to die at home, rather than a nursing home or hospital, I better start thinking about how to make that happen. 

I’ll keep you posted.