by Whitney Merrill

The following article is Part 2 in a series about Dr. Eric Shapira and his new book A New Wrinkle: What I Leaned from Older People Who Never Acted Their Age.

Eric Shapira reading from A New Wrinkle. Photos: Whitney Merrill.

Most people first reach out to Dr. Eric Shapira, a gerontologist, when they are in crisis, calling him for emergency assistance. Very often this call is from a family member who is looking for information, guidance, counseling or a referral to a specialist for an older person — all of which Shapira provides with compassion and wisdom derived from years of experience. However, he notes that this “triage” can be quite challenging and when I asked him how he would  ultimately prefer to engage his clients, to provide the greatest benefit and value, he was very clear: “I wrote the book so that I could help people plan.”

In reading his book I was amazed at the number of issues facing each of us as we live longer and our earlier assumptions regarding retirement and the “golden years” are no longer valid. Shapira points out that most people do not have what he calls a “strategic plan” for retirement, aging and family transitions. They might have a will and some form of financial plan but the vast majority are under-prepared for the variety of emotional, psychological, medical and financial situations that confront us during the aging process. And as Shapira reminds us, when you don’t have a plan you are likely to find yourself in crisis, with family being forced to engage where previously they may have been “waiting for the problem to rectify itself or the person who has created the problem in the first place to go away somehow — perhaps dying.”

As Shapira says in his book: “What I have learned from older people who never acted their age about families in crisis is that no matter what age one may be, crisis can strike when you least expect it to do so. One must be able to think rationally and not allow oneself to be overly emotional to the point of being paralyzed in making decisions about a specific challenge or set of stressors.”

One of Shapira’s clients that I spoke to described her extended   family as being in just such a situation, finding themselves unable to move forward without Shapira’s direct intervention and counseling. She said that he took on a number of roles through the process — educating and providing information to the family about the specific issue, providing direct counseling to the aging person, and providing coaching and an action plan for everyone to follow.

One of the many strategies that Shapira uses when working with families is to set up a mock corporation, making each family member a stakeholder in the corporation. Family members are then asked to define their “job descriptions” and commitments to the goals of the family, with the actual business focused on its aging members and the transition that is occurring in the family. This exercise takes some of the fear and emotion out of the natural transition that occurs in each family, while also allowing each family member to have a voice in a controlled environment.

In attending a book-signing, I had the opportunity to meet some of the older people that Shapira has helped and learned from, “who never acted their age;” it was truly inspiring. I walked away with a sense of optimism and hope for the future, ready to work on my own strategic family plan; I encourage you all to do the same.

Book Excerpts

Somehow in life I missed the section of the training manual that told me getting older was something that happens when you least expect it. This is a subtle experience for some, and yet, for others aging is much more of a shock. One day, I looked in the mirror; and there I was: looking at a stranger — a balding, graying, crow’s foot, bags under formerly youthful eyes kind of guy. I had to laugh out loud because I kept visualizing my father! My laugh was but an oral reverberation of an internal scream. I know down deep that I was looking at myself. What a revelation! Maybe some of you reading this can relate in some way, or maybe it just hit you and now you can laugh out loud along with me.

I had spent five years in graduate school studying to be a clinical gerontologist, after practicing dentistry for over thirty years, and suddenly I was my own client! Every time someone asked me why I went into gerontology I answered, “Because I wanted to know what I had to look forward to.”

Well, so be it. There it was, staring me in the face with all its glory — me, an older me.