Published: April 2, 2025
Kendal at Oberlin is home to more than 300 people in their 60s and well beyond. They come from near (Oberlin and Cleveland) and far (Hawaii, Canada and elsewhere). The residents share many common values, such as sustainability and lifelong learning, and many have ties to Oberlin College. But each resident has his or her own unique story.
Meet Judi Bachrach
Whether writing songs about aging or poems for special occasions, Judi Bachrach joyfully shares her creative writing with the Kendal at Oberlin community.
She’s currently working on compiling an album featuring songs she has written or rewritten since moving to Kendal seven years ago. An Oberlin musician is scoring the music as Judi recruits Kendal residents to sing and perform the songs, such as “Two Sides of the Same Coin” printed below.
“I can’t sing very well anymore but there are plenty of people at Kendal who can,” she says.
Another project underway is collaborating with resident Rebecca, a photographer, to illuminate the wonders of water through photographs and words in a program. With the AV skills of Dennis Cook and others, she hopes the event will be ready to share with the Kendal community this year.
Judi’s move to Kendal
When Judi’s husband died in 2018, she lost both a soulmate of nearly 50 years and a caregiver who helped her with the challenges of multiple sclerosis. She was living in Woodstock, New York, and needed help managing her disease. Moving to Ohio was not on her radar until her daughter, Emilia Bachrach, a professor at Oberlin College, told her about a “fantastic” continuing care retirement community a mile from campus.
“My daughter was right about Kendal,” Judi says.
“These are my people, my ‘peeps,’’’ she says, naming the many people who make her life comfortable and enjoyable at Kendal, from her physical therapists and Stephens Care Center nurses to residents who share her love for meditating, writing and other forms of creativity.
Her latest creative endeavor is participating in a “creative movement” class with Kendal residents and Oberlin College students. The class, taught by Al Evangelista, is meeting weekly at Kendal this spring. Judi, a former dancer and choreographer who now uses a power wheelchair, says the gathering is “like a grown-up playground of intergenerational exchange.”
Judi’s ongoing activities include a monthly writing group led by Carol Tufts, Oberlin College Professor Emerita. Judi says it’s a wonderful gathering for guidance, appreciation and gentle critiques of their writing.
Every week she gathers with other Kendal meditators for a “centering” practice led by Oberlin psychologist Indira Palekar over Zoom. When Indira is not available, Judi leads the group in an in-person meditation.
“I’ve been meditating 50 years, and I can’t imagine living without meditating. It aligns me with the reality we all share,” she says.
Judi says she carefully manages her time so she has the strength to be with the friends and activities that enhance her life, such as compiling songs for the Kendal community.
“Two Sides of the Same Coin”
By Judi Bachrach
When I was younger, I fed the hunger
to become Somebody that the world could see.
Now I am older, I am much bolder,
and daring and caring to simply be me.
Chorus:
Two sides of the same coin,
laughing and crying and living and dying.
The rainbow of aging is always engaging
with who we really are.
Loved ones are leaving, teaching me grieving,
my broken heart I am learning to bear.
When I open to sorrow, I open tomorrow,
an opening heart has much more love to share.
Times I still wander, times I still squander
this gift I am given of being alive.
Time is unending, I am befriending
a body that's old, a young spirit that thrives.
