Ruth Willig News Today

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with New York Times reporter John Leland about the end of his series of articles following several people who were 85 years and older to the end of their lives.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with New York Times reporter John Leland about the end of his series of articles following several people who were 85 years and older to the end of their lives.

The outsider from the 2020 presidential race ponders what’s next.

For Chuck McGinley, an engineer who devised the go-to instrument for measuring odors, helping people understand what they smell is serious science.

Sex can drop off in our final decades. But for those who keep going, it can be the best of their lives.

Notes from the end of a very long life

Is “forever boosting” tenable?

With the death of Ruth Willig at 98, a Times series on a set of the oldest New Yorkers — chronicled over seven years in 21 articles — offers their lessons on living with loss.

How the Oldest Old Can Endure Even This No visitors. No friends at the dining table. Neighbors dying without notice. But many older adults have proved resilient during the pandemic, a phenomenon known as “crisis competence.” Like the rest of us, Ruth Willig, 97, found pandemic life depressing. Lately things have been improving.Credit...Judith Willig Jan. 1, 2021 It was sometime in the spring that Ruth Willig, then 96, first compared her pandemic life to being in prison. My mother, Dorothy, ...