not only do all human beings err, but they err frequently and in predictable, patterned ways. - Atul Gawande

I learned about a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn’t one of them. Although I was given a dry, leathery corpse to dissect in my first term, that was solely a way to learn about human anatomy. Our textbooks had almost nothing on aging or frailty or dying. How the process unfolds, how people experience the end of their lives, and how it affects those around them seemed beside the point. The way we saw it, and the way our professors saw it, the purpose of medical schooling was to teach how to save lives, not how to tend to their demise.

Modernization did not demote the elderly. It demoted the family.

You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.