Kathryn Betts Adams

aDepartment of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, UK bNational Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC), Leicester General Hospital, Leicester, UK cLeicester British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, University of Leicester British Heart Foundation Cardiovascular Research Centre, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester, UK dCentre for Environmental Health and Sustainability, University of...

Ah yes, every body does it, but when it’s your own body, it hits differently. I speak of aging, of course. I’ve been an advocate for older adults and their families, an educator for geriatric social workers, a researcher in social gerontology, and a memoirist about my parents’ challenges with aging. But here I am at 67 years old, and none of that knowledge and expertise has inoculated me against the effects of aging upon my body. Alas.

We lay our father’s ashes to rest The weather cooperates on this June day. By late morning, it has stopped raining but continues to be cloudy and misty, neither hot, nor sunny — just right for a burial. Almost exactly four years after our dad’s death, we’ve gathered to move our dad’s cremains from the lacquer box on my sideboard at home, to rest near the place he’d lived for 37 years.