EILEEN ADLER

"Courageous care partners recharge with self-care, striving for peaceful pinnacles
in patience, persistence, and positive 
changes, knowing when to conquer and when to comfort."

Winter Stars

Apr 15, 2024 by Eileen Adler

Dave Iverson is a founding member of The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s Patient Council and the author of “Winter Stars: An Elderly Mother, an Aging Son and Life’s Final Journey.” 

“I’d moved in with my 95-year-old mom in 2007, when she could no longer live alone. I was a 59-year-old broadcast journalist at the time, hosting a radio program on San Francisco’s NPR station and beginning work on a new film for the PBS “Frontline” series. My life was full, but flexible. It just made sense, I thought, to move in and help.”

My mom turned her face to me and said, “I feel lucky.” And she said it again: “I feel lucky.”


I asked her if she could tell me why. There was a long pause, and then she looked at me with eyes as bright as winter stars and said, “Because there is love all around.”

Dave Iverson alongside his mom Adelaide on her birthday turning 103.