Book Review: To Do No Harm: Learning to Care for the Seriously Ill

Abstract

it did not include elders' loss of family and home. Thinking of "later years" of elders, I anticipated that he would address the problem of the isolation of elders "with their own kind," the transience that often leaves elders living at a distance from their children and grandchildren, and the trauma of giving up the family home. This chapter is about the grown child leaving home and the loss that both parents and children experience at such a juncture. For the elderly, the loss of home has a very different meaning. (Sullender gets to elder loss of home in discussing his final loss, independence.) Large sections of this book are more about "empty nest" than "later life," leading me to believe that the book might more accurately be entitled "losses in the middle years and in later life." Sullender writes about a middle to upper income population, generalizing that in later life people, apparently including himself, probably "have more money available now than ever before in our lives." I think, for example, of the elders served by Community Ministries of Rockville (Maryland) who have only their social security income, and minimal or no savings. Also, Sullender assumes that everyone has two known parents, not true in many deprived areas of our society, nor for persons who choose to raise a child alone. The poor as well as persons who have not had good enough parenting, and people living in non-traditional families might have a hard time identifying with the book. Sullender basically writes about and for the economically comfortable, heterosexual two-parent family with children. Apart from these limitations, Losses in Later Life is a well-written, insightful, and useful book for many adults of all ages, particularly those who seek to remain faithful to their religious beliefs and to further develop their spiritual lives unto the end. It is equally helpful to persons who walk with their beloved elders through their final years.