Marriage And Caregiving, Making It Work...a Conversation With Barbara Thompson

Growing up we all have a vision of what our life will look like. By the time we reach the last season of life, we might struggle with bitterness or depression or discontent because life was nothing like we expected. Is there a way to trade in the bitterness for contentment and joy? Is it even possible to flourish as we age? At the end of each chapter in Aging with Grace, Flourishing in an Anti-Aging Culture, co-authored by Susan Hunt and Sharon Betters each chapter ends with a woman who is 70 or older sharing what flourishing in an anti-aging culture looks like for her. One of those story tellers is Barbara Thompson. In a five-minute video for the companion series Aging with Grace, Ask an Older Woman, Barbara answered the question: How do our expectations, plans, goals for aging influence our flourishing? Barbara unpacks her answer in this extended conversation with Sharon Betters, Barbara describes how life didn’t turn out the way she expected when she decided caring for her elderly parents was not a chore but a calling. Saying yes to being their caregiver meant saying no to opportunities to continue speaking at national and local women’s events as well as having an active role in the women’s ministry of her denomination. She describes how her marriage didn’t just survive but thrived in the middle of these hard places.