A baseball player who makes it past Little League may get the honor of choosing a walk-up song. This is the tune that gets played over the public address system as the player strides to the plate to hit. Some players choose their favorite song, or one that pumps them up. Some make it a joke. If I were allowed an Elder Law walk-up song (I didn’t make it past Little League), a tune that would play in my office for clients as I walked into a meeting, it would be Jamey Johnson’s “In Color.”

“In Color” is tells the story of a grandson flipping through family pictures and asking his grandpa about them. They talk about a picture of grandpa as an 11 year old, working in a cotton field with his brother, and about one from grandpa’s service in World War II, and another one from grandpa’s wedding day. The pictures spark living memories in grandpa that he still sees and feels although the events occurred long ago. “That’s the story of my life. Right there in black and white,” he says.

Visiting a client years ago at his home, I started to sit down but he stopped me and led me to a framed black and white picture hanging in his hallway. It was him in full Naval dress, in his 20s, maybe even a teenager. I looked at him standing next to me, now in his 80s. I was there because his children felt that he should not be living alone in his house any more.  I looked at him and he looked at the picture and it was clear to me that when my client pictured himself, he saw the man in the picture, not the man standing next to me. He wanted to tell the story behind the picture, not the story that was unfolding as we spoke. I admired my client’s stoicism in the face of great loss (his spouse; his health; his independence). I also knew that if he was unable to reconcile his self-image (the young man in the picture) with his reality (the old man in that largely empty house), he was going to lose a great deal more.

I was in that client’s home, and I started a career in Elder Law, because I loved my grandma, May, who turned to me once at the age of 81 and disgustedly told me, “Timmy, I can’t even do a jumping jack anymore.” She was completely dumbfounded that her body was failing her, because in her mind, she was the spry woman who would walk miles across town to mass every morning. She was that woman to me, too, and the one who worked for the telephone company as an even younger woman, and the one who woke up early and percolated Folger’s coffee so she could sit at her table and listen to the radio and read the paper, while the sun came up outside her window. I see May sometimes in my clients.

My clients aren’t always elderly, though. Much of my work involves young adults dealing with mental illness and their families, or estate planning or probate for clients of all ages, or guardianships for all sorts of reasons for all sorts of people. My clients face the common challenge of trying to figure out the road ahead, often as the road curves away from where they expected it to go. I have experienced those unexpected turns myself, and wondered where this road will end up.

When I walk into a meeting with a client, I’m often greeted with pictures of what my client has experienced, and I ask questions so that my client can bring those pictures into the unique focus of Elder Law. Then we figure out a way ahead. Hopefully, the path we choose brings relief to my client and teaches me another lesson about working through hard times and aging gracefully.