The meditation topic was about being liked at first.

I quoted a Buddhist monk as saying that striving to be liked by others is fruitless, it’s much better to like and be at ease with yourself. The Mansion residents in my meditation class – there were seven today – liked that idea.

But I doubted the Mansion residents cared that much about being liked at this point in their lives. I know by know that they do want to talk after meditating, it opens them up in some way.

When our meditation time was up – we were silent for 15 minutes – I asked the residents what it was they wished to talk about, and it seemed they all wanted to talk about fear.

Madeline said she was often terrified at the memory of her brother stabbing her father to death when she was four in order to protect her mother; Ruth said she was fearful half of the day, J said she had nightmares about the children she never sees anymore, and Alice just nodded and smiled. She didn’t want to talk about fear.

I heard their stories and was interested to see how much they want to talk about the realities of aging, and how rarely they get the chance. “Nobody wants to talk to old people,” Madeline says, “to them or about them.”

Madeline, who is in her 90’s, is the most direct and outspoken member of the class. There are usually nine people in the class, two were at the doctor’s today. I am surprised how much they like meditating, and equally surprised how eager they are to talk after the meditation is over.

This is revelation to me, sometimes I think growing older is a taboo in assisted care, the last thing people want or need to talk about. I was  wrong. I see that it is important to talk about it.

The meditation class has been a rich experience for me. I ordered some more meditation beads, since almost everyone forgets theirs. I don’t want to embarrass them, so I just order more, they are inexpensive. Wayne has figured this out and wears his as a necklace, so does Peggie.

We meet at a dining room table, which is usually set for lunch. It is almost never really quiet in the dining room, people walk in and out of the front door, there is much clanging and banging in the kitchen, we can ever hear the talking in the office.

But we find the deep silence in that room, every one of us and drink of solitude.

The residents thank me profusely for coming and talking to them. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do that with them, but now, I can’t wait either.

I see it is a gift for them to talk about their fears – losing contact with their children, getting sick, dying a hard death in some strange nursing home.

We keep the elderly alive and make billions of dollars off of their aging bodies, but take no responsibility for how they might live. To me, that is very often sadder than dying.