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Medals for Seniors Sheila Baslaw While visiting my friend recently, her six-year-old granddaughter Tania, looked at my 91-year-old legs and proclaimed loudly, “You got marks all over your legs.” I took a deep breath and said, “Yes, I do. They, are my medals.” Tania looked down at her perfect legs and said sadly. “I have no medals.” I do not know why the idea of medals popped into my head, but when contemplating this interaction, I decided we seniors deserve medals for managing in today’s world. At a time in our lives when we find our physical strength, mental acuteness, memory, and overall energy often diminishing we are expected to keep up in this whirlwind constantly changing world. More recently we have had to learn to navigate everything in our lives, under the dark cloud of covid.  And for those of us who are still living in our own homes there are the constant never ending maintenance challenges demanding our immediate attention. How to do it all with grace and calm? These are some of the challenges I face and my attempts at earning my medals. The challenge of keeping my house and myself presentable Recently my son Lawrence said, “Mom when did you last have a cleaning lady? I said, “You are looking at her”. I then turned to my daughter- in -law who is always the diplomat and asked, “Is it really that bad?” She said, “Get a cleaning lady.” We seniors are used to wearing glasses for reading. But as we get older our vision is often compromised. Maybe we need to think about wearing our glasses all the time to optimize our vision.  I had a disturbing recollection. A few weeks ago, I was at a posh event with a friend of mine who is eighty-eight

My mother was a dedicated professional, an advocate for children from all walks of life who were suffering in abusive family situations. She was incredibly dedicated to families  and their children who were in need of support from foster kids, to children from divorced families, to children in abusive households, to children and families from the NorthWest Territories namely, the Inuit who required translators, medical care etc. This is a brief synopsis of her career in social work: Oh and not to mention her writer career—in her latter years—taking courses and writing classes going to seminars, she came to Toronto on several occasions taking courses when she was learning to hone her skills for writing Children’s books. She also is part of a group in Ottawa called The Scribbling Sisters – a writing support group in her hometown. Then of course she became the Shtetl Queen…and the rest is happening live to air… — David, Coleman, and Lawrence, proud sons