We christen babies and boats. We celebrate young people's confirmations and sweet sixteen parties. We invite friends and family and neighbors for housewarmings when we've bought our first house or a new and bigger house. We gather our loved ones around us to say bon voyage before we take a big trip. Rituals remind us to say thank-you, to enjoy our blessings, to mark our progress in the world. Rituals can be fun. Rituals are affirming. Rituals are good for the soul.

So why don't we have more rituals that center on celebrating and recognizing the challenges and blessings of aging? Rituals that mark passage from one place to another. Rituals that establish of pattern of meeting. Rituals that are based in fun. As Mary Pipher notes in her book Another Country, "We need 'saying good-bye to neighbors' parties and 'saying good-bye to a house and yard' ceremonies. We need 'driving to the institution' rituals and 'entering the new place' rituals."

When your mom or dad or other elderly loved one is faced with a move from the place that's been home for years, it is understandable that it will cause stress and pain and sadness. We do better to honor these emotions, than to pretend they don't exist. A small gathering of old friends and family where you allow your parents to say good-bye to the house they've lived in for ten or thirty or fifty years can go a long way in easing your parents move to a new home, whether that new home is your home, an assisted living residence, or a nursing home.

Once your mom or dad is settled in the new place, you can also create new rituals that will affirm your parent's importance and give you and your family something to look forward to. This way your kids get to see grandma and grandpa associated with something other than doctor's appointments, walkers, and medication. Create family rituals that involve different combinations of your parent, your spouse, your kids, and yourself.

Perhaps the first Monday of every month will be when your seventeen-year-old son takes grandma out to dinner. You can dub it "Lucky to Have a Grandma" night. Perhaps Wednesday mornings will be when you and your dad sit together and tell each other a story about your childhood, sharing perspectives and anecdotes. Maybe your husband and daughter will take your mother out for a Sunday afternoon drive once a month, and stop for tea along the way. (This has the added benefit of giving you an afternoon to yourself.) Maybe at Christmas time, you take your mom to a big department store downtown and look at the decorations and stop for a chocolate milkshake on the way home.

The idea isn't to try to infuse meaning in the mundane. It's to recognize the inherent meaning that's already there. And to celebrate it. And to honor our elder loved ones role in it. Try it. Start a new ritual that involves your elder loved one this week. Then check in six months from now and see if it's taken root.