My 86-year-old great aunt, Astrid, was the definition of “cool aunt.” She traveled to every continent except Antarctica. She ran marathons across the Great Wall of China and the site of the first modern Olympic games in Athens, Greece.

It appeared the marathon-running gene did not get passed down my way. At 29, I found I could barely run a mile. I used to play sports in high school and enjoy running, but now I was quite slow and quick to fatigue. Whatever I tried was not helping me increase my distance. I thought back to a few years ago, when my aunt, Astrid, told me that she was still regularly running 5Ks. What? In your 80’s? 

It turns out that in 2023, about 60 runners of the New York Marathon were above the age of 80. Aunt Astrid was not an anomaly but surely had some wisdom to share about running long distances for a long time. 

In mid-October, I called and asked her to put me on a running plan. Her answer really surprised me. 

Her plan was more about rest and recovery than it was about actual running. 

She told me not to run every day, to run slower than I had been and to build up distance very gradually. I asked her how her own exercise plan has changed over her lifetime, and she said, “It hasn’t! I just got slower.” When you’re focused on recovery, it is easier to adapt to age-related changes in speed. 

Throughout late October and early November, I tried Aunt Astrid’s running plan. I increased my distance from one mile to almost two miles in only two weeks. 

I set out to write this blog about longevity and physical resilience in later adulthood, but life had other plans. Less than a month after Aunt Astrid put me on the plan, she was diagnosed with a fast-growing brain tumor. The reality set in: my seemingly invincible aunt was not going to get better. 

What amazed me was that Aunt Astrid was already fighting an invisible illness even as, living wholly in her identity as a runner, she shared her wisdom and legacy with me. 

That reminded me of one of my favorite psychotherapy interventions that I use frequently as a geropsychologist: meaning-centered-psychotherapy. It was initially developed out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to help individuals living with cancer find meaning in life, despite the existential distress and suffering that can come with a life-limiting illness. 

One of the main components of the treatment is the idea of “being” versus “doing.” All our lives, we typically focus on external achievements or actions (doing). When someone develops cancer, they may not be able to do all the things they used to. 

Being, on the other hand, refers to one’s values and connection to a larger purpose. Rather than actions being the primary focus (e.g., running), the goal is to shift one’s focus toward one’s inner experience. What is meaningful about running? How can we connect with what is meaningful behind an action, despite hardship, disability, or illness? How could Aunt Astrid continue to ‘be’ a runner when she could no longer ‘do’ the action of running?

Unfortunately, I was never able to ask my aunt these questions because her illness progressed so quickly. Only a few weeks after we talked on the phone, she lost her ability to speak, was diagnosed with brain cancer and began receiving hospice care. 

Though I never asked Aunt Astrid what was meaningful about running, it was obvious that her identity as a runner continued through her last month of life. Her friends from her New York City running club came to visit her at her bedside. My mom put the New York Marathon coverage on the television in her hospice room, so that she could watch her nephew Zachary crossing the finish line in her honor. She continued to be a runner in every sense of the word, despite her inability to physically run. Eventually, her 20-plus running medals were displayed at her wake. 

As I grieved the loss of this inspiring woman, my partner reminded me that Aunt Astrid’s advice about running can apply to much more than running. Focusing on rest and recovery is important not only in long-distance running but in grief, in hardship and in life.

Anastasia Canell

Anastasia Canell has a PhD in clinical geropsychology, a specialty that focuses on understanding and helping older people and their families. She has worked in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and outpatient clinics, providing psychotherapy for individuals, groups and caregivers, and is currently employed as a dementia specialty care psychologist. She also does research and has written and spoken extensively about issues associated with aging, such as the way becoming an older person’s caregiver impacts young adults (18 to 25).

This is the second of two blogs about Lewy body dementia. You’ll find part 1 here.

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a degenerating brain disease that causes dementia and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. As I wrote in part one, it’s frequently misdiagnosed because it’s so little known. Also, it shows up with a wide variety of symptoms. Some are distinctive and some mimic other dementias. 

When primary care physicians screen for dementia, they are mostly looking for a decline in short-term memory—an early, prominent symptom of the most common dementia, Alzheimer’s.

In contrast, in DLB, the earliest cognitive change is a decline in executive function—that is, the ability to plan and carry out an action. Someone developing DLB will have trouble organizing, planning, reasoning, focusing their attention and doing things, like getting dressed, that need to be done in a certain sequence. Also impaired are visual abilities such as depth perception and eye-hand coordination, and to a lesser extent, memory. 

The challenge is that initially memory problems and these other problems in thinking look very similar. Later, they are more distinct.

At that point, you might see a woman with Alzheimer’s who can still drive her car but can’t find her way home. The procedure for operating the car is  in her long-term memory, which she can still access. Wayfinding depends on storing a short-term memory so it lasts long enough that she can use it, which she can no longer do. 

A man who has dementia with Lewy bodies can’t start his car in the first place, because he’s lost his grasp of the sequence of the steps he must take to start the car.

(These examples are based on cases in an excellent book, A Caregiver’s Guide to Lewy Body Dementia [2020], by Helen Buell Whitworth and James Whitworth.)

In their very late stages, the two diseases again look more alike. 

To make matters worse, there is growing evidence from autopsies that half of all DLB cases show evidence of Alzheimer’s pathology as well. Thus, half of all people with DLB may have symptoms of both.

In that case, does it matter which disease or diseases someone has?

Yes. It’s very important to know—and know early–if dementia with Lewy bodies is playing a role, because DLB makes people very sensitive to medications, including many that would be the drugs of choice for their most troubling symptoms.

Two of these symptoms can appear early in DLB, and both increase the chance that drugs dangerous for people with DLB will be used if a doctor has not made the correct diagnosis. 

One is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep disorder, named for the movements our eyes make while we dream. 

Normally, our muscles are temporarily paralyzed during REM sleep, to keep us from acting out our dreams. For reasons not fully understood, this paralysis sometimes doesn’t happen in diseases caused by Lewy bodies. When someone with DLB has a dream full of action, their thrashing arms and legs put them and their bed partner at risk of injury.

REM sleep disorder is not a part of Alzheimer’s. That makes it a red flag for DLB, even when it precedes, as it often does, any other symptoms.

Hallucinations are the second symptom that can show up early in dementia with Lewy bodies and that carry the risk of being treated inappropriately if DLB has not yet been diagnosed. Generally, the DLB hallucinator sees realistic but benign figures, like children or small animals, and isn’t frightened by them. But there is wide variation.

Millie, a 70-year-old woman, had early dementia with Lewy bodies. One day, when her daughter called, Millie told her, “Grandpa’s sitting in the blue chair in the living room. He’s been sitting there all day.”

“Do you mean Dad?” her daughter asked.

“No. Grandpa Freddy.”

“But that’s impossible. He’s been dead 60 years!” her daughter protested.

“Well, I can’t help that. There he is,” Millie calmly told her.

In contrast, if a person with Alzheimer’s develops hallucinations it will be much later in the disease, and they are not likely to be as benign.

Sometimes, dementia with Lewy bodies is mistaken for a psychiatric illness because it can cause anxiety, depression and agitation, as well as hallucinations and delusions. 

Before my friend’s mother, Suzy, was diagnosed with DLB, she was treated for anxiety and agitation with diazepam (Valium). It caused such deep sedation, everyone was afraid she might not come out of it. 

The doctor took her off diazepam, but when the sedation wore off, her agitation returned, along with disturbing hallucinations, so the doctor, still not realizing she might have dementia with Lewy bodies, gave her haldoperol (Haldol), one of the most dangerous drugs for anyone who has dementia with Lewy bodies. 

Suzy developed severely rigid muscles, and her thinking declined precipitously. Once off the haldoperol, she improved but was never again able to live independently.

Given the sometimes tragic consequences that can result from DLB not being diagnosed early enough, if you have reason to be concerned that you or someone you love may have it, there’s comfort in knowing that you can get an answer. 

Medicine has reached a consensus on the symptoms required to make a diagnosis. I will list the symptoms in order of their importance and then tell you where you can go to get an accurate diagnosis.

Besides dementia, which is the essential feature, at least two of these four core symptoms must be present:

• Fluctuating levels of attention and focus; spells of staring or unresponsiveness.
• Recurrent visual hallucinations—fully formed and realistic images. 
• REM sleep behavior disorder.
• Parkinsonism: slow movements, tremors at rest, rigid muscles.

Other symptoms common in DLB can support the diagnosis, such as sensitivity to medications, repeated falls, daytime sleepiness or a major change in mood—a formerly enthusiastic person becoming immobilized by apathy, for example. 

If the diagnosis remains in doubt, a type of brain scan called a DaTscan is sometimes used. It reveals the level of dopamine in the brain—a low level is characteristic of DBL. The results of the test are not definitive but are used as an adjunct to a physician’s assessment.

If this review of the important symptoms matches some of the symptoms you see in a family member, you need to find someone who can give you an accurate diagnosis.

When people move on from their primary physician to a neurologist, they commonly feel they’re going to a specialist who will have the answers. But Jason Karlawish, MD, co-director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Memory Clinic, says, “Finishing neurology training doesn’t make you an Alzheimer’s doctor.” I would add, much less a DLB doctor.

Neurology today is largely divided into subspecialties. For example, some neurologists concentrate on stroke, others on epilepsy.  For a diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies, you need a neurologist who specializes in dementia or in movement disorders.

The best place to start looking for a specialist is the Lewy Body Dementia Association website. There you will find information about their Research Centers of Excellence (RCOE). By all means, go to one of them if you can!

There are 20 such centers across the United States, and they have proven expertise in the diagnosis and care of people with DLB. Even if there isn’t a center within reasonable reach, any RCOE or the LBDA itself may be able to help you find a qualified neurologist near you. 

Then the bigger challenge begins: living with dementia with Lewy bodies—as a diagnosed person or as a caregiver. If you know the symptoms and the behavior that stems from DLB, you will be better prepared to live this experience with compassion and grace. 

My mom, Sally, was eating very little during her last week. She was sleeping more, chatting less and she changed her bathroom routine.

For a year or so, I would stand in front of her walker in front of her recliner (which she never reclined), she would grab onto my hands and, as she pulled herself up, I would lean back until she was on her feet. She’d walk the short distance to the bathroom (she refused a commode, as that would signal some type of aging weakness) with either me or her aide, Lakita, trailing behind. She’d thankfully do what she needed to do with no help from me and only occasional help from Lakita, then we’d walk back to her recliner—which I thought of as The Chair, and which was where she spent the majority of her time.

Two days before what would be her last, Mom decided she no longer wanted to walk to the bathroom, so we got out the portable wheelchair. The New Chair.

Late on her last Friday, Mom rolled to the bathroom, stood up outside the door, reached for the knob, and said, “Aw, the hell with it.” She sat back down in The New Chair and rolled back to her spot in the living room, where she would remain.

The next morning, I got a text image from Mom’s grandniece—Mom had become a great-great aunt. I showed Mom a picture of the baby girl, and she remarked that she hadn’t finished knitting a hat for her. I told her she’d better get to work on it. She smiled and nodded.

As Sally Ramona was about to end her life in New York, Stella Rae had begun her life in Colorado.

The rest of the morning was quiet, but in the afternoon, Mom got restless.

She asked me to help her unbutton her shirt. I told her she wasn’t wearing a shirt, but a house dress. And there were no buttons.

She asked me to help her get the dress off. I told her she couldn’t take the dress off because then she’d be naked.

As she continued to fuss, I called Visiting Nurses and was told this was not uncommon. It was time for The Morphine. 

Two months or so earlier, when Mom had started palliative care, a nurse had arrived with a little cardboard box and told me to hide it in the refrigerator. It was The Morphine and The Haldol. I had always thought that the professionals would do the work during end-of-life care, and I said to the nurse, “I’m not giving my mom morphine.”

“You may have to,” she replied.

So on that last day, I asked my mom if she would like a drop or two of morphine.

“What do you think?” she asked.

The last thing I wanted to do was think, I thought. If I didn’t give it to her, and she was unnecessarily uncomfortable, I would feel awful. If I did give it to her, and it hastened her demise, I would feel awful. 

Two drops.

An hour later she was still fussing. Not hurting, just agitated.

The nurse on the phone said to give her one drop of The Haldol.

My big regret was wishing one of the nurses had mentioned that the final drop might literally be final. Maybe we could have had a more meaningful farewell. Because after The Haldol, Mom was still breathing, but she stopped moving.

A nurse actually visited that night, took Mom’s vitals—her oxygen was a little low—and told me she had begun “transitioning.”

“What?” I asked. What would this “transitioning” entail? If she woke up, would I need to give her more drugs? Would a palliative nurse stay and help me through the process?

The nurse told me I could call if I needed help, packed up her things and left.

I sat with my mom, talking quietly even though I had no idea if she could hear me, until around 3 a.m. She was still breathing, and I went to sleep.

When I awoke around 6 a.m, her breathing had stopped. Mom looked the same, but everything was different. 

I cried, like I’m crying now as I write this. No matter how prepared you are, you’re never fully prepared. The apartment suddenly seemed very quiet.

Howard Gensler

Howard Gensler is a veteran journalist who has worked at the Philadelphia Daily News, TV Guide and the Philadelphia Inquirer and has freelanced for dozens of magazines and websites. Gensler wrote the story for the 2012 movie Hysteria, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy. In between jobs, he worked as a caregiver for his mom.

This is the first of two blogs about Lewy body dementia. You’ll find part 2 here.

Some years ago, my friend Molly Grant, was concerned about her husband, Todd, so she asked his sister, Peggy, if she’d noticed any change in him. 

“Yes,” Peggy admitted. “He seems to have lost his self-confidence. And his posture has changed; he’s slumped.”

Todd also seemed confused at times. He had what Molly called his cloudy days, but sometimes within hours his mind would clear. In addition, neither of them was sleeping well because he was so restless at night.

When Todd finally agreed it was time to see a doctor, his primary care physician gave him a mini-mental exam—a 10-minute test that screens for cognitive impairment. He scored 25 out of 30.

“That’s just on the edge,” the doctor said. “It could be early Alzheimer’s, but only time will tell. Come back in six months and we’ll check again.”

Once home, Molly wondered how Todd would have scored if he had been tested on one of his cloudy days.

Not long after, Todd tripped and fell. He wasn’t hurt, but when it happened again a week later, Molly was sure it had to do with the way he shuffled when he walked. He was also having trouble with small tasks, like buttoning his shirt, and his falls were making him anxious.

“Something’s wrong with my body,” he told Molly.

A neurologist they consulted was immediately taken by Todd’s shuffling gait and his anxiety. He detected rigidity in his muscles and slowness in his movements.

“Todd, I think you have Parkinson’s Disease,” he announced.

Molly mentioned Todd’s borderline score on the mini-mental test, but the doctor said, “Nah, that’s close enough to normal.”

Todd started physical therapy to maintain his range of motion. It was a challenge when his mind was cloudy. Furthermore, a medication the neurologist prescribed for him for his Parkinson’s rigidity made his confusion worse.

His best friend from college was now a neurosurgeon. When he learned of Todd’s symptoms and diagnosis, he wasn’t satisfied. He sent the Grants to Dr. P., a neurologist friend of his. 

During the 15 minutes Dr. P. spent with Todd and Molly, he took four phone calls. When it looked as though he was going to dismiss them without a diagnosis, Todd blurted out, “What’s the diagnosis?”

“You have dementia with Lewy bodies.” Pause. “And Parkinson’s.” And he was gone.

It was a shock to Molly and Todd that he had two diseases. Furthermore, they had never heard of dementia with Lewy bodies. A bit shaken, before they left for home, they called his sister Peggy to share the news. By the time they got home, Peggy had googled Lewy bodies and emailed them several links, most importantly that of the Lewy Body Dementia Association.

Lewy body dementia is confusing in several ways. It’s an umbrella term for two closely related diseases: dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD). Both combine the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) and the cognitive symptoms of dementia. 

Like Parkinson’s itself, both are caused when a normal protein in the brain—alpha-synuclein–begins to form clumps inside brain cells. Called Lewy bodies, the clumps eventually cause brain cells to die and the brain to shrink.

DLB and PDD cause slightly different symptoms but a big difference in timing.

PDD’s cognitive symptoms show up only after the person has had PD motor symptoms—tremor, shuffling gait, slow movements, rigidity—for at least a year, often not until the person is in late PD. Dementia with Lewy bodies, on the other hand, generally starts with cognitive symptoms, and within a year the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s begin.

Therefore, it’s clear that Todd, whose cognitive problems came first and PD symptoms soon after, has DLB, not PDD, and certainly not both dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson’s. For DLB patients, Parkinson’s symptoms are part of the disease.

Todd is not alone in being misdiagnosed at first. An autopsy study showed that health care providers miss DLB in one out of three cases.

Yet after Alzheimer’s disease, DLB is the most common form of neurodegenerative dementia. It’s been called the most common disease no one has heard of. 

An estimated 6.7 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, and another million have Parkinson’s. Both are well known. Though about 1.4 million people have dementia with Lewy bodies, it’s almost unknown.

Why?

DLB was first documented in autopsy in 1976, but it wasn’t until 1996 that experts reached a consensus on how to diagnose it. Medical schools began to teach about it some years later. That’s why many physicians in practice today don’t know of it.

But even for those who have heard of DLB, it’s challenging to diagnose. In part 2, I’ll describe the core symptoms necessary for a diagnosis, and other supportive symptoms that help lock it in, as well as symptoms that can be misleading.

I’ll also describe how to find a physician who is knowledgeable about dementia with Lewy bodies. It’s important to diagnose DLB early and I’ll explain why.

Sometimes lately, when I enter my apartment, I can’t help noticing how good it feels to be home. I’ve lived here for 18 years, so why this flush of pleasure now? I wondered until I identified the feeling: contentment. 

That got me thinking about how contentment is different from happiness, which is more intense but fleeting—often triggered by getting what you want. Contentment is about wanting what you already have and feeling good about it—the way I feel when I walk through my front door. 

In hard-driving, competitive societies like ours, the quest for contentment hardly exists, but researchers report that finding contentment gets easier with age. What’s more, it’s possible to cultivate that quiet sense of well-being and feel content more often. 

Studies show that contented people tend to be healthier—though it’s possible that the reverse is true, and healthy people are more likely to feel contented. Or that both things are true and form a kind of beneficial feedback loop: being healthy promotes contentment, which makes you healthier, which keeps you content, and so on. 

Why is contentment easier to come by in later life? The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has been following some of its subjects for more than 80 years, found that with age, many people are better able to slough off small worries and focus on what’s important to them—and what makes them happy. My own guess is that, post-retirement, many people also feel less stressed. The ambitions that drove them earlier in life no longer do, and they care less about what others think of them.

An article by psychologist Jessica Koehler, PhD, summarizes ways to cultivate contentment. Of course, it’s hard to feel content if you’re trapped by poverty or a chronic illness, but some of her suggestions are quite simple. When big things are going wrong, it can help to focus on little things that are still going right. 

In fact, a number of Koehler’s tips are about what you pay attention to, and to my surprise, she mentions several things I already do. (I haven’t listed all her tips here, and I’ve expanded on many from my own experience.) 

Practice thankfulness. Start each day by thinking about three things, big or small, that you’re grateful for. Dwell on them a bit. When I remember to do this, it usually puts my worries in perspective. Koehler also suggests keeping a gratitude journal.

Practice mindfulness. You’re being mindful when you’re fully present in the moment: aware of your body, your surroundings and your thoughts, but you let those thoughts drift by without judging them.

An ordinary day offers many chances to pause, focus mindfully on the present moment and appreciate small pleasures. 

For instance, while I take the first few bites of breakfast, I close my eyes and concentrate entirely on the taste and texture of what I’m eating. Until I read Koehler’s article, I didn’t know this was a form of mindfulness—it was just something I liked doing because usually at meals, I’m too busy thinking about other things to appreciate anything less attention-getting than chocolate. 

Mundane tasks can provide another opportunity. For example, as you fold laundry, still warm from the dryer, pay attention to how it feels and smells as you smooth the fabric. 

Connect with nature—something else I already do just because it feels good. Sit down somewhere quiet, close your eyes and soak up the sunlight. Notice the breeze ruffling your hair, the birds chirping nearby, the smell of freshly cut grass. Drink in some long, deep breaths. 

Celebrate small achievements. Congratulate yourself when you remember things that are easy to forget, like where you left your car in a crowded parking lot. Small tasks, long delayed, like sorting out a cluttered drawer, can also provide a lift, if you let them. 

Be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for past mistakes. Listen to what you’re thinking and the next time you scold yourself or question your own abilities, notice what you’re doing and stop. 

Focus on your relationships. Close, warm relationships probably contribute most to contentment in later life. Meaningful conversations with friends and family can feel especially good—the times when you get to talk openly and honestly about what matters to you and to them. 

Listen actively. You’re doing that when you focus all your attention on what another person is saying. You ignore distractions and resist the temptation to think about how to respond or whether you agree or disagree. Just listen. This isn’t easy to do, but if you’ve ever had 100 percent of someone else’s attention, you know how good that feels—usually to both people.      

Thank others. In particular, express thanks for the things they do for you that both of you take for granted. That’s good for your relationship and it’s also a reminder of how much you have to be grateful for. 

Be generous to others. You’ll feel good about yourself afterward and earn a little nudge of contentment. 

Develop new skills. Try something creative and intensive, like painting, writing or playing a musical instrument. As you learn, appreciate each gradual improvement. 

Laugh at yourself. As you age, lots of little things go wrong. Finding them funny can make them more tolerable. I’m still chuckling over the morning I forgot to put a mug under the spout of the coffee maker. I failed to notice the puddle of coffee spreading across the counter because I was busy describing to my daughter the last time I forgot the mug.  

Finally, one last way to nurture contentment is to notice when you’re feeling content and pause to enjoy that thrum of quiet satisfaction. 

Does this explain why coming home often feels so good to me? Have I pursued contentment and caught it? 

I doubt if anyone can do that. Contentment comes and goes—certainly, mine does—but it comes more often than it used to. And it’s definitely worth pursuing. 

Flora Davis

Flora Davis has written scores of magazine articles and is the author of five nonfiction books, including the award-winning Moving the Mountain: The Women’s Movement in America Since 1960 (1991, 1999). She currently lives in a retirement community and continues to work as a writer.

I remember the excitement of the telephone ringing in my family home in the 1960s. The call might not be for me but for my parents or a sibling, which would be a letdown to a preteen. Phone calls were an escape for me—without a car, I was confined to my family and the neighborhood kids for companionship. A long phone conversation was a luxury. 

I remember the strict time limits applied for my calls, so anyone trying to reach my mother could get through. (No call-waiting.) We had a primary phone in the kitchen, one in my parents’ bedroom and an extension downstairs; until the touch tone came out, we dialed. I preferred the extension, so I could stretch the curly cord into the laundry room for privacy. It would get so tangled. More than once, it came out of the phone’s base. 

Before too long, my parents sprang for a “teen phone” with a separate phone number. Gone were the days of the please-get-off-the-phone dance and pantomime, when Mom was holding up the line, organizing her bridge group, one friend at a time. The big phone book would come every year. I knew my friends’ phone numbers by heart, and curiously, I still remember many of them. 

Fast-forward to today, when I don’t answer my phone. Yes, I pay for cell service for my iPhone, but if it rings, I don’t answer it. It’s mostly spam; I can count on my true friends and colleagues to text before calling to see if it’s a convenient time to connect. I don’t enjoy talking on the phone as much as digital communication. I schedule calls with my daughters for when they can put me on speakerphone in their cars, and I sit with a large cup of tea. 

Unscheduled phone calls are disruptive. They demand immediate attention and can interrupt other activities or conversations, whereas messages can be managed more discreetly and at the recipient’s convenience. Texting (preferred) or emailing allows you to focus on the message and be less likely to say something untrue or that you’ll regret. 

Phone calls are more time consuming than sending a quick text message or email. Their efficiency drives me toward communication methods that are more efficient within my daily routines. I don’t listen to or leave voicemail messages either. I’ll know you called if we have shared our numbers in Contacts.

So don’t call me, I’ll call you—but I’ll text first. 

Pepper Evans

Pepper Evans works as an independent-living consultant, helping older adults age in place. She is the empty-nest mother of two adult daughters and has extensive personal and professional experience as a caregiver. She has worked as a researcher and editor for authors and filmmakers. She also puts her time and resources to use in the nonprofit sector and serves on the Board of Education in Lawrence Township, NJ.