When mental, psychological and physical capacities dis-sipate with old age, is this decline an outright destruction of faculties, traits fully acquired throughout an entire existence ? Or on the contrary, might this not be a slow, ultimate renewal ? The story of Aude Zeller and her mother, whom she accompanied during her last six years of ife, comes to fill in the gaps of our understanding of old age : psychoanalytical knowledge and Christian spirituality come hand in hand to enable us to understand in what many ways regression can become the base of recovery.