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I Miss the Rain in Africa
Peace Corps as a Third Act
(A Tale of Transformation)
Winner 2022 Nautilus Award
Winner 2022 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award
ExPat Nest Top Ten
Nominated Push Cart Prize
ABOUT THE BOOK
At a time when friends were planning cushy retirements, the author walked away from a comfortable life and business, taking with her only a couple of suitcases to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war, Northern Uganda.
Her story is a multilayer tale, beginning with a grand adventure of living in a radically different culture, and turning old skills into wisdom. It’s also about the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life—to enter the wilderness of our own memories and psyches to mine the gems therein.
ABOUT THE BOOK
At a time when friends were planning cushy retirements, the author walked away from a comfortable life and business, taking with her only a couple of suitcases to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war, Northern Uganda.
Her story is a multilayer tale, beginning with a grand adventure of living in a radically different culture, and turning old skills into wisdom. It’s also about the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life—to enter the wilderness of our own memories and psyches to mine the gems therein.
The final layer unfolds within the surreal experience of returning home to a life that no longer “fits”— becoming the catalyst for new revelations about family wounds, mystical experiences, and personal foibles.
I Miss the Rain in Africa takes the reader to surprising places, both literally and emotionally with all the elements of adventure, wit, discovery, and ultimately transformation. It is the story of honoring the self, discovering a new lens through which to view life, and finding joy along the path.ABOUT THE BOOK
At a time when friends were planning cushy retirements, the author walked away from a comfortable life and business, taking with her only a couple of suitcases to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war, Northern Uganda.
Her story is a multilayer tale, beginning with a grand adventure of living in a radically different culture, and turning old skills into wisdom. It’s also about the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life—to enter the wilderness of our own memories and psyches to mine the gems therein.
The final layer unfolds within the surreal experience of returning home to a life that no longer “fits”— becoming the catalyst for new revelations about family wounds, mystical experiences, and personal foibles.
I Miss the Rain in Africa takes the reader to surprising places, both literally and emotionally with all the elements of adventure, wit, discovery, and ultimately transformation. It is the story of honoring the self, discovering a new lens through which to view life, and finding joy along the path.
FOREWORD
I Miss the Rain in Africa: Peace Corps as a Third Act, is an absorbing record of a woman’s literacy work in Northern Uganda. It is also a record of the exploration of self, explored by a woman who enters a remote area of Africa at age 64 to work with an NGO. Ugandans were emerging from Joseph Kony’s cruel and bizarre rebel insurgency which had left the Acholi populace brutalized and mired in poverty. Assigned to an outpost in the north of Uganda, “where all bus trips begin with a prayer” and “bathroom breaks can be hazardous to health,” Nancy Wesson begins to live and work with survivors and strivers.
Western privilege and pride in institutional roadmaps to progress have no place here. Daily life for Ugandans is a struggle unimaginable even to the poorest Americans. Life is indeed precarious in Gulu, yet education is highly valued, and solutions hammered out of almost nothing. Season and weather guide life here and everything is “about the relationship, not the clock.” Westerners used to direct and quick solutions must adjust quickly to decisions made through consensus.
But serendipity lives in Africa, too. Nancy gets to know her landlady’s son which leads to literacy materials made of jigsaw puzzles. The residents of Gulu leave a deep imprint on the author; in particular, Peter, whose education she sponsors. On trips to the bush, exhausting and hazardous, Nancy works with teachers to carve out learning spaces. Her work in Uganda would leave her a bit battered and re-entry to the States—shell shocked at the contrasts. “Recalibration” is sought and achieved through another exploratory journey into the maturing self, requiring a reckoning with remembrance, recognition and reconciliation.
With self-deprecating humor, curiosity in all things, and empathy for all, Nancy takes us through an account of acclimation, acceptance, and peace with all the different geographies she encounters—physical, communal, spiritual. “I had devised a portable life with total autonomy and it was daunting. Having infinite possibilities was both the good news and the bad news.” Living in Uganda brought home the knowledge that having choices is the ultimate luxury, to be made “wisely and often.”
Part adventure, part interior monologue, I Miss the Rain in Africa: Peace Corps as a Third Act is an account of 21st century derring-do by an intrepid, intriguing, and always optimistic woman who will undoubtedly enjoy a fourth and maybe even a fifth act wherever she may find herself.
Eileen (Percy) Purcell, Outreach Literacy Coordinator Clatsop Community College, Astoria OR
Reviews
I Miss the Rain in Africa
Wendy Sample: November 11, 2022 Face Book
Thrilling tales of service and lessons learned in “I Miss the Rain in Africa” by Nancy Daniel Wesson. “An adventure in
exploration into self via another culture. New skills are called for every moment of every day,” you said
it! In gratitude for taking me along on your journey of self discover and empowerment.
I wrote down many passages and am looking back on them as nuggets of truth.
~~~
Posted: PEACECORPSINTERNATIONAL.ORG
Leita Kaldi Davis says:
I read this wonderful book. Actually, my son found it for me as a birthday present and thought that Wesson’s experience as a PC volunteer in an African country was similar to mine in Senegal at age 55. It is, in many ways. I also was surprised and enjoyed the last chapters when she talks about her spiritual work with people, as well as her own inner journey.
It’s a fascinating, well-written book. Isn’t the cover beautiful!
Leita Kaldi Davis
RPCV Senegal 1993-96
Recipient Lillian Carter Award 2017
~~~
Posted on PEACECORPSINTERNATIONAL.ORG
Rob Thurston says:
After spending two youthful yeas as a PCV, living without water or electricity, dodging snakes and occasional nighttime patrols of weapons-at-the-ready young soldiers, I quite admire Nancy’s spunk and engagement with such challenges. I’m not sure I’d be able or willing to break out of my retirement to do that. I look forward to reading her book and getting her perspective on the experience.
I certainly identified with having family and friends urging her to write down those stories and vignettes. That is what prodded me to write a memoir, “Life’s Treks and Trails: My Journey from Vale to Kathmandu” and, subsequently, a novel of dark intrigue, “Devil’s Breath”. Like Nancy, I didn’t anticipate where the weaving together of recollections would lead me and was constantly struck by unexpected turns and twists….the story, enriched now by many intervening years of experiences, wrote itself.
5/27/21 Amazon Review
Reviewed in the United States on May 27, 2021
“Will you still need me, will you still feed me/When I’m sixty-four” were taken literally by the author when she went into the Peace Corps in northern Uganda when she was, yep, 64. If you’ve been, this book is a delight, and I walked beside her all the way to her return in 2014. She brought energy and organization to her discombobulated PC posting. If you haven’t been, you see how the second part of this book recreates the need for a life reinvention and how one person went about it. The author took another 7 years to re-orient herself to living in the States where she is happily ensconced in Oregon. Paradoxically, I had been in Uganda in 1964 when I was 24 and returned home 3 1/2 years later to the teaching life that I had started right out of college. Our experiences were pretty much different although we both had geckos in our bedrooms. Wesson’s third act followed a time of wandering the globe with a first husband, and family rearing/profession building time with a second husband which also ended in divorce. She was exasperated in Uganda most of the time, and yet fashioned a purposeful existence in harsh surroundings. This book is an account of a vibrant PC experience, and fashioning life changes without looking back. We should all be so strong.
B. Goddard, Editor: We Were Walimu Once and Young: Snapshots of Teaching in East Africa
~~~
This lovely book by Nancy Wesson is a primer in how to be a human being. At 64 years of age, she went to Uganda as a Peace Corps volunteer. Her post was in an area recently ravaged by war, impoverished, full of horror. It was also full of decency, humor, incredible acts of generosity and kindness.
Nancy’s lively writing will take you there and teach you many things. You will become a better person for enjoying her account of two remarkable years.
But above all, her book is fun. She gave me a laugh in the midst of most unlikely adventures, like breaking a finger, or being surrounded by gun-wielding soldiers.
Then there is the last part of the book, after her return: a very touching psychological journey to healing. This part is a primer in self-therapy.
More entertaining than most novels, this personal account is a must-read.
Bob Rich, Ph.D., Author, Psychologist, Bobbing Around, https: //bobrich18.wordpress.com
~~~
Starting this review with an admission, in general I don’t care to read memoirs. A great number of them tend to lean toward self-congratulation and as an empath, I’m likely to feel embarrassed rather than inspired.
So why read this one? Another admission: I know the author. And I like her. Chances were I would enjoy it. Not only because I admire Nancy, but because, in a small way, I was part of this story. And that part was so magical and so powerful, the memory is my own special treasure.
I was not disappointed, nor was I embarrassed at all, to turn the pages of this charming, engaging and light-filled book. Rather, I found myself smiling throughout.
How many of us would be willing to serve by living and working in the developing world for years at a time…at age 64? Imagine the people you know who have lived at least six decades. Now imagine any of them announcing that they are leaving their current life and world behind to go join the Peace Corps. I don’t know anyone, other than Nancy Wesson, who would even give a moment’s notice to the thought.
Service to Others is the highest of callings. From my perspective Nancy was already answering that call before she left for Africa. Her soul must have been calling her to step it up a notch, but maybe there was more to the calling.
In this insightful and touching account, Nancy shares her daily interactions with the rich culture, people and land of Africa during her Peace Corps tour, knowing intuitively that she would be changed at the end of her adventure, but not until its conclusion would she learn exactly how or how much.
By reducing her world to the very basic of needs…food, water, shelter while being in service to others who had similar needs, first-world comforts and distractions would, over time, no longer obscure her own inner landscape. Finding that balance between crises and opportunities would open up expansion not only for those around her but for her own inner world.
Changing her entire life to accommodate service to the Corps would, in the end, reveal old wounds and bring new light and spiritual understanding to long told stories of her “self.”
“I miss the Rains in Africa” is a poignantly written journal of self-discovery and self-healing, experienced through a thoughtful observation of collective and individual humanity. One comes away with a measure of grace and gratitude for Nancy’s story, as she illustrates so beautifully how we might create a roadmap for our own self-expansion.
Candace Craw-Goldman, Founder BQH (Beyond Quantum Healing), Quantumhealers.com
~~~
“Inspiring and educational when it comes to what we can accomplish when we put our best foot forward, I MISS THE RAIN IN AFRICA shows how Nancy Daniel Wesson and others are putting the needs of others ahead of themselves—and what we can all do when it comes to stepping out on faith and choosing to act.”
Cyrus A. Webb, media personality/author http://www.cyruswebb.com http://www.facebook.com/cyruswebb
http://www.twitter.com/cyruswebb
Conversations Magazine, http://www.conversationsmag.com
~~~
Nancy’s experiences described herein are uniquely achieved and rewarded. Her courage and determination allowed her to venture into another life from her previous one, which perhaps for her, had become too familiar and comfortable.
I would think that many of us could learn or strive to live life to the fullest by following Nancy’s example. Imagine venturing into new realms, especially at a later time in life when we possess meaningful knowledge for analyzing, but also for applying a critical philosophical perspective on new experiences.
I do believe this idea may have been in large measure what Mark Twain had in mind when he stated: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
I wholeheartedly recommend reading Nancy’s book, at the very least for a great travel experience.
Gary Vizzo, Former Management & Operations Director for Peace Corps Community Development: African and Asia
~~~
I Miss the in Africa is a true and adventurous story of a wise woman of 64, who goes to Uganda as a Peace Corp Volunteer. Her account of this escapade is a rich, page turning tapestry of events, emotions, cultural surprises, and inner reflections that continue to be woven even after returning to her home country.
Wesson’s style of writing takes me right where she is—as if I am with her—living these unfamiliar situations. Wesson has become my eyes, ears, and nose as she weaves through these challenging environments during her Peace Corp service. This account had me laughing, cringing, delighted, frightened, and more. Through her I have met interesting people, been through dangerous situations, experienced frustration and the sweetness of understanding and kindness.
Here she describes a scene where she had broken her finger and in order to reset her bones properly a ring on that finger needs to be removed. A dialogue takes place between a metal worker she calls the Blade Master who is to cut off the ring, her two sons, and herself. The Blade Master is holding a 12” long electric rotary saw with raw wires instead of a cord which were to be stuck in an outlet to power the saw.
Blade Master: “Don’t worry, you not move-no problem.”
Me: “It’s not YOUR hand.”
Blade Master “You too anxious. Someone hold her down.”
Me: “Your blade is bigger than my hand and wider than my knuckles…what if it slips?”
Blade Master beaming with cheer: “No worries! If it slips, we in hospital!” Hahahaha…..
Besides an entertainingly written story, Wesson opens up an opportunity to reflect on our own lives and meaning we give it based on our challenges in our own upbringing – an invitation in coming to terms with what we have become and perhaps how we continue to evolve.
Michelle DeStefano, L.Ac. CCH, Acupuncture, Hypnotherapist
~~~
I Miss the Rain in Africa is a great read. Nancy Wesson skillfully takes you on a surprising journey not only into the heart of Africa through her Peace Corps experience but also into her own spirit and mindset. Stepping into the strange and compelling world of Uganda Nancy displayed a unique courage that is only surpassed by her willingness to share her very personal experiences. You will feel connected to both her Peace Corps service and also to the universality of the human experience in all ways, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
I Miss the Rain in Africa was meant to be a memoire about Nancy Wesson’s Peace Corps service in Uganda, 2011-2013. In her writing Nancy quickly learned that her story was taking a surprising turn. What began as a journey into the heart of Africa evolved into a tale of reconciliation, self-awareness, and healing. Nancy’s story is universal. I Miss the Rain in Africa is written in such a way as to take you on your own journey. Nancy holds out her hand so that you can stand by her side in order to embrace her lessons learned and make them your own. You will be changed. You will have a deeper self-awareness, and you, too, will discover peace in past relationships and experiences. I Miss the Rain in Africa is that kind of book.
Holly Copeland, retired LMFT, Co-Founder Family Copeland Foundation: scholarships for St. Mary’s Midwifery Training School, Kalongo, Uganda www.familycopelandfoundation.org
~~~
Who knew, least of all the author, that a decision to step out of “regular life” and serve in Peace Corps would become far more: a journey that reveals new insights and an unexpected springboard for rescripting the author’s history in a way that would change everything. At first blush, the book is a collection of blog entries that invites the reader to tag along with the author on adventures while on a two-year assignment in Uganda. Like Anne Lamott in the Operating Instructions, an honest and comic tale about the love-hate experience of new motherhood with a first born, or Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence, where Mayle paints a personal description of Provencal life, Wesson offers a montage of stories and experiences that introduces the reader to the colorful people and challenging life in Uganda. Wesson’s observations are shared with humor, respect, and compassion. For anyone who has ever wondered what serving in Peace Corps or immersing oneself in a radically different life overseas might be like, this book provides a portal.
Even better, the author opens new possibilities for any reader who has flirted with the idea of “cliff-jumping” into a something new to find something more. Wesson’s daring venture at age sixty-four – to chuck it all: career, home, and a comfortable life in The States – paid off. By the end of her book, Wesson’s journey shifts from blog entries to a re-examination of experiences from early infancy. With excitement and a sense of discovery, Wesson re-connects with her long-ago past in ways that enable her to chart a new path forward, seeing differently now.
At this point in the book, I found myself examining my own childhood experiences and re-framing mental narratives that no longer serve. Through Wesson, we gain not only a deeper understanding about Uganda and life as an overseas development worker, but may also find the inspiration to dig deeper, see differently, and find a new path forward.
Kathleen Willis, RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) – Community Organizer, Former Organizational Development Consultant.
~~~
This book of personal transformation offers a truly funny but sobering look into a totally different cultural and the lessons learned about self while navigating the unknown. Ms. Wesson keeps the reader entertained, while also stopping along the way to reflect upon our own self journeys. A FUN read. I highly recommend this book of unique adventure and self-discovery.
Ms. Wesson offers the reader a delightful accounting of a REAL Peace Corps experience and the life-changing opportunities this can bring to those searching for something to broaden their minds and their hearts. The book and the hilarious and soul-wrenching experiences keep the reader turning the page.
I HIGHLY recommend this book.
A highly entertaining and insightful exploration into self and personal transformation set in a unique place in war-torn region of east central Africa. Ms. Wesson’s insights into what she learned through her personal experiences and friendships developed in the Peace Corps life in Uganda holds lessons for all of us, if we want to explore what has made us what and who we truly are. An EXCELLENT read.
Jeanne H. RPCV Uganda
~~~
HH
Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2021
Verified Purchase
I have been privileged to have known the author for 56 years and she is an incredibly versatile person with the ability to solve problems and adapt quickly to new life situations. She has the ability to bring you along for the ride in her latest life adventure with the Peace Corps in Uganda. It makes you laugh and it makes you cry. You can feel the frustration of a super organized, always on time individual frustrated with the normally simple task of contacting individuals, setting up a meeting, and then trying to get to the meeting. Frustrations abound with intermittent electricity disrupting computers and printers, ability to get on an overcrowded bus, and hoping it would get to the destination in time for the meeting only to find nobody comes until you are there. She adapts, learns the ropes, and does her best to change the lives of the people in Uganda for the better. This book is a good book for anyone thinking about joining the Peace Corp. I think she accurately describes what transformations and adjustments are necessary to adapt to life in the Peace Corp in a developing country. I look forward to more books from the author.
Hank Holcomb
~~~
Betty Sue
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2021
Verified Purchase
I enjoyed and appreciated this book so much. It’s entertaining to read, draws the reader in, filled with truths, and is such a beautiful description of people in Uganda, and their difficult but enriched lives that they are so generous in sharing with us. The author’s acceptance of that gift as a means to greater understanding and living life more fully, is something of an inspiration for anyone. For sure I would recommend it to those considering Peace Corps or other volunteer service, and for anyone (all of us) who is on a journey of being the person we were created to be.
Betty
~~~
Open Mind-Open Book
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2021
Verified Purchase
A deeply personal memoir. Both a window into what it looks like to serve in Peace Corps in an African country and a journey of personal growth and transformation. Wesson is courageously honest and authentic about the challenges and gifts of being a Peace Corps Volunteer and the impact it has on your life when you return home.
~~~
Kindle Customer
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2021
Verified Purchase
I love this book. The author is clearly someone who could take a dangerous and very challenging Peace Corps assignment to Northern Uganda and turn it into something personally rewarding but more importantly take the opportunity to see the beauty and resilience of the Ugandan people. Reentry is always difficult and she bravely searched
her soul and many avenues until she found just the right place to settle down. The book is also highly entertaining and fun to read. I recommend it to anyone who wants to go on a fascinating adventure.
her soul and many avenues until she found just the right place to settle down. The book is also highly entertaining and fun to read. I recommend it to anyone who wants to go on a fascinating adventure.
~~~
Marla Beaty
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2021
Verified Purchase
Immediately I was drawn in and living life through a courageous and steadfast woman embarking on a journey of unknowns; few will ever experience.
Nancy’s personal reflective and debriefing period invites the reader to personalize it for themselves. Life perspective and values will be forever changed.
Nancy’s personal reflective and debriefing period invites the reader to personalize it for themselves. Life perspective and values will be forever changed.
~~~
Amazon Customer
Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2021
This book about Nancy Wesson’s time spent in the Peace Corp in Uganda Africa was compelling because you could smell, taste and FEEL the rain, mud and insects! And almost hear the lilting speech of her many new friends. And cry when inevitable low points occurred. It is another way for us to further understand and support African friends we haven’t met yet, but who came alive with her descriptions of day to day life. For those of us without the urge to GO quite that far away to serve, take the adventure in reading this book and you will grow from it!
~~~
Judy Knight
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2021
It was fun. It was funny. It made me laugh, even belly laugh. Sometimes it was sad and made me cry. At the age of 64 the author gave up her comfortable American life and moved into the unknown of Peace Corps in recently war-torn northern Uganda. Her description of her life there was honest, illuminating and inspirational. She turned a confusing, difficult situation to a win-win, served with kindness, compassion and respect and was treated the same by Ugandans. Then she came back and had to figure out how to be home again again.
~~~
Helen A. Moynihan
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2021
Nancy Wesson’s book, I MISS THE RAIN IN AFRICA, an accounting of her two year stint in Uganda with Peace Corp, was a page-turner for me! Written with humor and heart, it took me to where she was and thrilled and delighted me. It is an extremely well written book, by the daughter of a librarian, which is important to me–any thing else distracts me. But the content–Oh it is SO entertaining and yet SO profound! As a life-long reader, there are certain books that remain in my memory and my heart. This one does! Thank you Nancy, for recording your adventure, your journey, your life-changing event or the rest of us to experience.
~~~
Leita Kaldi Davis says:
I read this wonderful book. Actually, my son found it for me as a birthday present and thought that Wesson’s experience as a PC volunteer in an African country was similar to mine in Senegal at age 55. It is, in many ways. I also was surprised and enjoyed the last chapters when she talks about her spiritual work with people, as well as her own inner journey.
It’s a fascinating, well-written book. Isn’t the cover beautiful!
Leita Kaldi Davis
RPCV Senegal 1993-96
Recipient Lillian Carter Award 2017
~~~
Posted on PEACECORPSINTERNATIONAL.ORG
Rob Thurston says:
After spending two youthful yeas as a PCV, living without water or electricity, dodging snakes and occasional nighttime patrols of weapons-at-the-ready young soldiers, I quite admire Nancy’s spunk and engagement with such challenges. I’m not sure I’d be able or willing to break out of my retirement to do that. I look forward to reading her book and getting her perspective on the experience.
I certainly identified with having family and friends urging her to write down those stories and vignettes. That is what prodded me to write a memoir, “Life’s Treks and Trails: My Journey from Vale to Kathmandu” and, subsequently, a novel of dark intrigue, “Devil’s Breath”. Like Nancy, I didn’t anticipate where the weaving together of recollections would lead me and was constantly struck by unexpected turns and twists….the story, enriched now by many intervening years of experiences, wrote itself.
~~~
After reading this lovely book…I too could smell the rain and other things Africa. I MISS THE RAIN IN AFRICA is a shining example of a late life dare and self-introspection. Nancy shows us how to reconcile three generations of family history and Peace Corps volunteer work. Upon completion, I was left to wonder what will Nancy do next?
Daniel Davila III,CPA
Moving Your Aging Parents
fulfilling their needs and yours, before, during and after the move
Winner 2009 Nautilus Award
ABOUT THE BOOK
Moving Your Aging Parents was the result of not only of moving my own mother, but of more than a decade of helping others relocate, down-size, and create beautiful, functional spaces based on their specific needs and dreams for the future. A lifetime of honing an artistic and spiritual bent, coupled with an aptitude for organizing spaces, evolved into a toolbox of synergistic skills as diverse and far afield as the ancient practice of Feng Shui and intuition development to Dispute Resolution, Organization, and Neural Reprogramming.
Combined and tailored to fit each client and their unique challenges, the toolbox offers infinite possibilities for transforming life and allowing us to manage our own energy. I’d applied them all in seminars, business productivity, personal one-on-one consulting, but nowhere did I need all of them more than when dealing with family, specifically, my own mother.
The book will guide you through each of the stages in ways that must might save your relationship, or improve it- as it did ours. Briefly:
Whether we are whittling down to the essentials for a parent moving into a few rooms or downsizing for ourselves, making decisions based on health and safety alone could have devastating emotional and spiritual consequences. This hope-filled book will show you how to:
- Identify needs and desires to create a quality life
- Cope with Depression Era mind-set
- Create emotionally sustaining environments to feed the soul
- Ready and sell the family home
- Ask the RIGHT questions to help divest of treasures
- Manage your energy and spirit throughout the process.
AWARDS
- Nautilus Book Award Silver Relationships Category
- Nautilus Small Press Award
- Reader Views First Place: Aging and Retirement Category
- IBPA Next Generation Book Awards: Finalist in two categories: Spirituality & Aging
FOREWORD
by Jacqueline Marcell, Author of Elder Rage: How to Survive Caring for Aging Parents; host of the Coping with Caregiving radio show
This book is a treasure trove of practical tools, valuable insights and heartfelt hope. Nancy shares her eldercare experience (which most of us will have with our own aging parents) through rich and honest stories and practical, compassionate guidance centered around moving her own mother. Through creative techniques developed over decades of working with clients and students, she not only shows us how to help our parents’ transition to their new life, but also offers a sensitive guide for creating a whole new way for living it.
Early on, Nancy makes the statement that “After physical needs are met, this endeavor [moving our parents] has far more to do with the spirit than at any other time of life.” Far from offering platitudes, Nancy offers a valuable, heretofore unavailable blend of practicality and inspiration.
Her real-life stories are profoundly moving, but she doesn’t take the easy road and stop there. She offers us the real tools—all practical, some original, some taken from other research and disciplines and exquisitely adapted to this phase of life. Some are geared to getting our parents on board and engaged in the possibilities; others act as a lifeline to pull us, their children and helpers, out of the quicksand of competing responsibilities and make it possible to help with grace and wisdom.
At the core of such transitions are deeply conflicting feelings and the need to communicate from the heart. But schedules, fears, old wounds, personal needs, grief, fear and egos act as obstacles to our providing the comfort and support we intend. Nancy offers very specific techniques and skills to guide us through not only the difficult conversations with our parents, but our own internal dialogues as well. She offers deep insight into the divergent histories that have created the often-conflicting mindsets and values that make even talking about this move so heart-wrenching. Nancy’s understanding of these issues and the guidance she provides offer us a way to be gentle with our parents and still move forward with the task at hand. Her shared experiences with her mother and her clients are proof that it is possible to transform this event. Instead of it being on-the-job-training which we must endure and survive, it really can be a positive, life-healing experience—ushering us into an increasingly rich and fulfilling adult relationship with our parents.
The processes presented in this book apply even if we are not physically relocating our parents. They are just as appropriate when applied to a new stage of life in their own homes. Her book offers a great many things we can do to help them age-in-place and remain at home longer—maintaining their dignity and independence as long as possible and on their terms. In the chapter on Special Needs, Nancy identifies behavioral characteristics to help with early identification of some of the maladies that complicate later life and have been at the root of premature nursing home placements. There are many simple environmental adjustments that can make life easier and safer for those living with hearing loss, arthritis, dementia, Parkinson’s or low-vision. In addition to nurturing autonomy and personal dignity, they might well defer a move into more restrictive accommodations.
One of the comments I hear repeatedly in working in the realm of elder-care is that “Mom and Dad are just not adjusting well to the move.” Most books stop with “moving in.” This book goes far beyond and uses diagrams and stories to show us how to set-up the new residence and help them feel “at home.” Her ideas about re-claiming daily rituals to help them bond with their new lives are compelling. And the tips on where to go and who to con-tact to help our folks build new connections and friendships are true life-savers.
Nancy is a believer that quality of life and quality of environment are inseparable and she shows us with amazing clarity how thought, emotions and environment combine to help people create emotionally rich and sustaining lives regardless of circumstances or age. She shows us how to work with what we have, and turn the-hand-we-have-been-dealt into one that serves us and those we love throughout and long after the physical transition.
In reading this book, it became clear that Nancy has a unique ability to merge a wide range of seemingly divergent topics and skills into a whole that not only makes sense, but is inspirational. With compassion, humor and insight she tackles conflict resolution, spirituality, organization, interior design, space-planning (Feng Shui) and special needs—and presents the whole lot in an orderly, logical manner. In doing so she expertly guides us around every eldercare obstacle, while teaching us how to effectively communicate and negotiate with loved ones born of a different era. Ultimately she leads the reader through a process of discovery that can be life-changing. By the end of the book we realize this book goes far beyond just the task or relocating: it offers a blueprint for living a purpose driven life.
PRAISE for Moving Your Aging Parents
“Moving Your Aging Parents is a creative and inspiring godsend for helping Mom and Dad transition to the next phase of life. Nancy shows us how to heal ourselves, talk to each other, make plans, organize, pack, move, and create a new home and life to thrive ¾ not merely survive. Valuable for caregivers, healthcare professionals, and seniors interested in aging with independence, dignity and grace.”
—Jacqueline Marcell,
author Elder Rage, host Coping With Caregiving radio show
“Nancy Wesson has tackled successfully one of the most difficult areas of caring for aging parents: helping them retain a sense of their own space and their own place. Her practical, do-able approach will help baby boomers avoid mistakes and make their parents feel at home wherever they may be. As a veteran of 12 years of parent care, I recommend this book highly.”
—Jim Comer,
author When Roles Reverse: A Guide to Parenting Your Parents
“Moving Your Aging Parents is an excellent guidebook for anyone who is engaged in the process of orchestrating the downsizing and relocation of another human being, whether a parent (the actual subject of this book), another loved one, or even themselves. The author has drawn widely from respected experts in a diverse field of disciplines, and has truly created a reference book for managing environment to create a special place of retreat. The special needs of the aging or disabled are thoughtfully considered, with practical solutions for overcoming barriers related to diminished hearing, vision, dexterity, strength, ambulation ability, as well as mental capacity and memory. “As a thirty-five year plus veteran of health care practice as a Registered Nurse, specializing in the care of the elderly, I offer my heart-felt endorsement of this excellent book. It offers concrete plans to follow and emphasizes the emotional and spiritual counterparts that transform seemingly difficult chores into acts of mutual joy, growth, and love.”
—Mary Durfor, Rebecca Reads
“As founder of an integrative health care practice, I specialize in the care of the elderly from a mind, body, spirit perspective. Life transitions management is a large part of this work… Nancy’s approach is both genuine and practical, offering a valuable tool for this very important and often neglected phase of life.”
—Chris Holland, PhD, FNP, RN
Contemporary Health Care, Austin, Texas
“…A thoughtful and intelligent guide helpful not only to family members, but anyone involved with their situation. The information in Moving Your Aging Parents is relevant for every relocation regardless of the age or circumstances of the client.”
—Sally B. Yaryan, Director,
Professional Development & Education,
Austin Board of REALTORS®
“…A poignant, sensitive account…a guidebook not only to the compassionate treatment of elders but also for seniors themselves as they face making choices on their own”
—Diana M. DeLuca, Ph.D.,
author, Seniors Dealing with Life, http://coololdtech.blogspot.com
“This is a must-read book for anyone helping their aging parents. Nancy Wesson has taken the precepts of Feng Shui, adapted them in wonderful and practical ways and applied them with such deep compassion. Readers will find so many useful tips and strategies and will also learn much more about themselves in the process.”
—Lillian Garnier Bridges,
President, Lotus Institute, Inc.
author Face Reading in Chinese Medicine
“Having just spent a week with my 83 year-old mother, I realized that there were many changes in her life that I was not aware of. Ms. Wesson’s book gave me plenty of ideas of how to approach a move with my mother. Stubborn as my mom is I was able to handle this with few disagreements. As an advocate for Concerned Citizens to Protect the Elderly for many years, this is a book I recommended to the committee to get plenty of help for children of the elderly. As a college instructor for nurses, this is a book I put on recommended reading. Thank you Ms. Wesson.”
—Carol Hoyer, Ph.D. Family Psychology