Yet we still live with the awareness that there are more yesterdays than tomorrows. The older adults' task involves affirming their lives and choices. The older age person has to be able to look back and say, 'My life has been good. But telling their stories is essential for sifting through the past, making sense of it and affirming it despite losses, struggles and mistakes along the way. This affirmation balances the despair that can accompany aging.
Old age brings losses and diminishment.
Physical powers decline. The productivity that proved one's worth is no longer possible. Those who once tended to others must now receive care. Loved ones are lost to death, while one's own death draws nearer. All this invites a return to your baptismal identity.