MWSA Book Review

Old Age Is a Terminal Illness: How I learned to Age Gracefully and Conquer My Fear of Dying

Authors: Alma H. Bond

Publisher:  Universal Publishers

Reviewer: Bill McDonald – President of the MWSA

Death, Taxes and Old Age – Hard to Avoid!

Dr. Alma Bond has had several decades of experience as a psychoanalyst. She has also published over a dozen books but her newest book is something very personal and deeper than anything she has written about before. The title alone “Old Age is a Terminal Illness: How I Learned to Age Gracefully and Conquer My Fear of Dying,” sets the stage for what is about to emotionally follow inside her book.

This is partly a memoir along with some self-analysis and some spiritual probing into the biggest questions of all for any us – about death and the meaning of our lives. She is at that stage of life when she is attending many funerals for long time friends, associates and relatives. If anyone is lucky and blessed to live long enough then you will be in this same situation yourself.

I kind of smiled a little reading her book because I now find myself drawn to reading the daily obituaries in the newspaper looking to see if I have had any more of my friends die; sad to report, that I am finding more each year in there. I am only 60 years old but I have already lost all my parents (and step-parents), all my grandparents (long ago) and lost two younger brothers. These past two years I lost two best friends and almost a dozen fellow Vietnam veterans from my old unit. I suffered several heart attacks and a brain seizure myself and almost bought the farm several times in the last 18 months. So, her book made me take a deeper look at my own life as well.

She deals with these issues on a personal scale but as I found, the reader will relate to their own experiences and understand what Dr. Bond is dealing with and is trying to convey. The book has a message, or perhaps many messages but I think each reader will discover their own meaning from the stories and experiences that she writes about. Death really is that final frontier and most people are not in any hurry to explore it even if they believe in the “after life” and heaven.

Her book is not just for old people close to death but for people very much alive and well so that they may grow and learn and if possible, become prepared in some spiritual and emotional way for the un-avoidable termination of life that comes for ALL of us! None of us are going to live forever in these old bodies. Not even Dick Clark! So this book might be good cheap therapy for the readers to process this awaiting adventure.

The book is well written and is captivating. It is certainly a mind awakening experience and should get you thinking and perhaps even motivate you to some inner actions – either emotionally or spiritually. The book rates FIVE STARS from any book review source!