In this episode 182, we visit with Dr. Charles “Chuck” Edwards, author of Much Abides: A Survival Guide for Aging Lives.

When a hand tremor forced successful heart surgeon Chuck Edwards to re-evaluate his career, he concluded that he wasn’t ready to give up being a doctor. He loved helping patients, too much. But what could he do when he could no longer do what he had done at a high level for so many years. He could re-invent himself. That’s what.

The forces of change opened an interest for Chuck (almost an obsession) with aging that formed in his mind as he thought back to how he and his family struggled to preserve dignity first for their father, a World War II Veteran who was wounded on the D-Day invasion at Omaha Beach, who suffered dementia at the end of his life, and then his mother, who suffered from Alzheimers disease before she died. He decided to go back to school at Johns Hopkins to study the disease before opening the Memory Center in Charlotte that has grown to help more than 1200 patients and 3200 caregivers.

This book tells Chuck’s story and covers all aspects of aging, time left, what is under one’s control, factors that protect and factors that undermine our goals. Examples of successful aging are presented. A major theme is personal narrative and how one’s story, if valued , has the potential to change behavior and be the bedrock for aging with grace and purpose.