Paula Span

‘Transient Ischemic Attacks,’ Which Can Be Serious, May Need a New Name

July 28, 2022 by Paula Span

Montinique Monroe for The New York Times

On a recent afternoon in Bastrop, Texas, Janet Splawn was walking her dog, Petunia, a Pomeranian-Chihuahua mix. She said something to her grandson, who lives with her and had accompanied her on the stroll. But he couldn’t follow; her speech had suddenly become incoherent.

“It was garbled, like mush,” Ms. Splawn recalled a few days later from a hospital in Austin. “But I got mad at him for not understanding. It was kind of an eerie feeling.”

People don’t take chances when 87-year-olds develop alarming symptoms. Her grandson drove her to the nearest hospital emergency room, which then transferred her to a larger hospital for a neurology consultation.

As Families Grieve, Grandparents Step Up

January 10, 2022 by Paula Span

This is not what Ida Adams thought life would be like at 62.

She had planned to continue working as a housekeeper at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore until she turned 65. After retiring, she and her husband, Andre, also 62, thought they might travel a little — “get up and go whenever we felt like it.”

Why Older Women Face Greater Financial Hardship Than Older Men

January 8, 2022 by Paula Span

Susan Hartt describes herself as an incorrigible optimist, drawn to change and challenge. After a long, successful career in marketing and public relations, she had reason to feel financially confident in her older years.

But three years ago, a bank foreclosed on her modest house in Hamden, Conn. “I don’t think I’ve ever been as anxious in my life,” she recalled.

Ms. Hartt, 79, had encountered a combination of adversities. After a late-life divorce she called “amicable and equitable,” she had no retirement plan; it had seemed unnecessary because her husband had a “substantial” 401(k). Successive jobs had grown less lucrative, and her freelance work dried up during the recession.

Learning to Become a Better Grandfather

January 7, 2022 by Paula Span

Barry Sage-El, 69. Photo by Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times — Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times

When Ted Page became a grandfather in 2014, he wanted to hear other men’s stories, “real experiences that hopefully would guide newcomers,” he recalled.

“We’re shifting into a different part of our lives,” said Mr. Page, a 63-year-old from Lexington, Mass. “I was trying to picture what it would be like.”

Adding a Baby to a Family Tradition

January 6, 2022 by Paula Span

We were standing in line at the ferry dock in Provincetown, Mass., on a glorious, crystalline day last summer that made saying goodbye a bit harder than usual.

“End of an era,” said my daughter Emma, bound home to Brooklyn after our annual summer stay in a rented house on the Outer Cape.

I agreed.

The Year Grandparents Lost

January 5, 2022 by Paula Span

Kathy Koehler had made elaborate plans to meet her first grandchild. Her daughter, who was expecting a baby last March, lived in London, and Ms. Koehler intended to fly there from her home in Ann Arbor, Mich.

She had collected a small stash of blankets, toys and clothes to tuck into her suitcase, and reserved a bed-and-breakfast near her daughter’s flat for the month of April.

“I’d be there every day and help out and get to know this little guy,” said Ms. Koehler, who’s 63. “I could not wait.”

That trip never took place, of course. Nor did her daughter make a planned visit home in October to introduce her new son, Elya, to the rest of the family. Covid-19 intervened.