For many lesbian, gay bisexual or transgender (LGBTQ) older adults the thought of moving into a long-term care facility means denying your identity and going right back into the closet. One person working to change that is Cliff Alburger, the first LGBTQ Chaplain Resident at Hebrew Senior Life (HSL), which provides daily care for 3,000 elders across nine campuses in the greater Boston area. Cliff tells us about his groundbreaking work at HSL.

Writer Ann Campanella was 33 years old and hoping to become a mother when her own mother began showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease. As her mother declined, Ann suffered a series of miscarriages that compounded her feelings of grief for the mother who was slipping away from her. On the show Ann talks about her experience, captured in her memoir “Motherhood: Lost and Found."

Cartoonist Sharon Rosenzweig found it impossible to continue drawing after her mother died. She found the way back to her art through a warm-up ritual suggested by the cartoonist Lynda Barry. On the show Sharon tells us about that ritual, how it helped her grieve and how anyone with an interest in drawing can begin making a comic. Sharon’s work is part of a movement called Graphic Medicine.

Self-care gets a lot of play in the media, but the truth is we’re all connected and the practice of care involves many people, especially in times of crisis. In today’s show we talk with media scholar and veteran journalist Dr. Sherri Williams about her piece for Elle digital magazine titled, “It Takes a Squad to Care for an Elder.”

Rx4good President Ann Moravick expands on her piece for Forbes digital magazine titled, “What’s Love Got to Do with It? When Caring for a Business and Caregiving Converge.”

Award-winning author and illustrator Marissa Moss is best known for her popular “Amelia’s Notebooks” series. She took a radical departure from that series with her novel, “Last Things: A Graphic Memoir About ALS,” a deeply personal story of how Marissa coped with the devastating effects of her husband Harvey’s illness. Marissa talks about "Last Things" and why she was determined to show the full effects of Harvey's illness.

Best-selling author Marita Golden talks about her novel “The Wide Circumference of Love,” in which the real-world impact of Alzheimer’s disease on the African-American community is woven into a fictionalized story.

Dr. Maxine Borowsky Junge, co-author of the book, “Dear Myra, Dear Max: A Conversation About Aging,” returns to the show to talk about what she discovered on a trip to upstate New York where—with her adult children in tow—she visited three living communities designed for older adults. Now 80 years old and living alone on Whidbey Island (WA), Max can’t afford to stay in her house much longer but she’s determined to fulfill her priorities for the next stage of her life.

Executive Director Joe Carella of the Scandinavian Charitable Society of Greater Boston talks about how his accidental placement in a geriatric hospital ward as a teenager sparked his passion for community-centered living: a commonsense approach to aging where older adults in residential facilities are connected to the larger community through events and programs at the facilities that anyone can choose to participate in.

Canadian photographer Jay Perry was thirty-one years old when his father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Jay’s business was just taking off, with a portfolio that included artists Snoop Dogg, Usher and Gwen Stefani, but he decided to stop working and move in with his parents to help care for and spend time with his dad. On the show he talks about the experience.