Sisters author debuts new book

Sisters author Kelsey Collins has taken on the difficult issue of elder care in a new book.

Collins asserts that with 1.9 million elders currently living in U.S. nursing homes and more than a quarter of them rarely if ever visited by anyone, the quality of life for American elders is worse than ever.

The number of seniors in nursing homes is expected to increase by more than five million as baby boomers age over the next 20 years, and with little hope on the horizon for improvement in our health care system, who will take responsibility for them?

Collins is a hospice chaplain and eldercare advocate who has just published "Exit Strategy: Leaving this Life with Grace and Gratitude," a book that takes a hard look at elder care in America through the eyes of one of its most charming and outspoken elders, a nursing home resident named Bee Landis.

The book reveals the guilt, shame and fear of millions of baby boomers that are dealing with aging and dying parents. Collins urges all of us to "adopt an elder," and shows the reader how fulfilling a relationship with an aging parent or friend can be.

Bee Landis, who was Collins' adopted elder for 10 years until her death earlier this year, also happens to be a vibrant, outspoken original, a "spiritual spelunker," as Collins calls her, who was a Science of Mind minister and held forth over her own church in Bishop, California, after over 35 years as an elementary school teacher, while raising a son on her own.

The book begins when Bee is in her 80s and has almost no recollection of her life as a result of brain surgery and advancing dementia. Collins, who was Bee's protégé and assistant minister at Bee's church, has, after a long absence, reunited with Bee, finding her in a Bishop nursing home abandoned by her now-grown son.

As Collins re-bonds with Bee over the next 10 years, a story unravels in which we are introduced to Bee's extraordinary wisdom.

Collins offers the reader a collection of "Bee-isms" which serve as spiritual stepping stones to further Bee's message of embracing life and death with an attitude of forgiveness, openness and acceptance. One of Bee's axioms was: "When we can truly accept an unlimited God Source, then we can accept an unlimited Self."

Kelsey Collins is a resident of Sisters. She is an ordained Unity minister, former hospice chaplain, life counselor and accomplished public speaker. The introduction to "Exit Strategy: Leaving this Life with Grace and Gratitude" can be found at her Web site: http://www.exitstrategy-thebook.com. ;

There will be a reception for Kelsey Collins at the Pine Meadow Ranch Clubhouse from 4 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, December 14. For more information, or to request a review copy of the book, please e-mail Kelsey Collins at [email protected]