Gifts From the Heart : Meditations on Caring for Aging Parents (Paperback)

~ (Author), Geo Kendall (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Although caring for an elderly mother or father is one of the most difficult challenges a person can face, it can also deepen an adult child's respect for the parent and understanding for the role of caregiver. Gifts from the Heart: Meditations on Caring for Aging Parents is the caregiver's companion, a sympathetic guide to the spiritual aspects of an often demanding and exhausting situation. More than 200 meditations offer reflections on ways to embrace one's own growth while coping with the decline of an aging parent.

About the Author

Bonni Goldberg is the author of Room to Write (Tarcher/Putnam), and her essays have appeared in the New York Times and Baltimore Sun, among other newspapers. She lectures and conducts workshops on topics related to creativity and creative writing.

Geo Kendall is the director of the Baltimore Men's Resource Center and has facilitated seminars on personal growth and development for more than 10 years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809231433
• ISBN-13: 978-0809231430
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,223,691 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Book to Heal the Human Spirit, February 13, 2001

By	Joanna Catherine Scott (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you are caring for aged parents, you should run right out and buy this wonderful little book. It deals with that time when our situation with parents is reversed, when the child becomes the caregiver, the supervisor, the shepherd charged with guiding those who brought us in the front door of this life out its back door. This can be a momentous time, when responsibility can hang almost too heavy. But it can also be a time of joy and healing. Goldberg and Kendall have put together a collection of meditations on old age and caregiving that show how to turn the frustrations, exhaustions, and traumas of caring for old parents into a time of spiritual enrichment. Like Goldberg's Room to Write and The Spirit of Pregnancy, Gifts from the Heart is a book to keep beside the bed, a book to be dipped into and savored. It will restore your spirit when you are exhausted by duties and demands, and encourage you to look beyond the day-to-day to the beauties and revelations that can heal divisions between child and parent and bring about a final separation that rises toward transcendence. This is not a how-to book, although it abounds with practical suggestions. Rather, it is a series of parables, simple on the surface, but full of depths and comfort. It is a book to heal the human spirit.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opening, February 5, 2000

By	jasondimen - See all my reviews

This book was a lot more than help for people with sick parents or people who's parents live with them. It shows how to enrich one's relationship to one's parents in their elder years,and how to gain insight into one's own life and aging process through frequent or occassional interaction with one's parents.