Mark Kennedy

Bella Lam, 23, was born prematurely. As an infant, she had a tube in her lungs, and for years she went to speech therapy and occupational therapy to correct a speech impediment and hands tremors.

Before she died last August, my late wife's eyes were slowly going bad.

Kennedy: My late wife’s organs have given life, health to four people

Nancy Cogar, a local elder law attorney, has advice for Chattanooga baby boomers: If you’re still breathing, you need a last will and testament and durable powers of attorney for health care and finances.

Husband and wife Dan and Betty Smith have a storybook family. They live in a storybook 1970s-era house with a storybook terraced flower garden in the backyard filled with peonies and iris.

Ron Vallieres, 89, can stand up for hours in the 24-by-12-foot garage workshop outside his Azalea-wrapped house in Apison.

Emily Niespodziany is 40, an age at which many people feel the first tugs of mortality: a sore elbow after a tennis game or the first mention of health screenings by a doctor.

Max Riemer, a graduate of the McCallie School, played Division I baseball at the University of North Carolina.

Long after she retired from her job as a bank teller, my mother still counted out imaginary money.

"Twenty under 40."