Our Stories
Elaine's Story
I'm gonna be 80 this year. I always say God willing, because who knows? And when I was younger, I just assumed I would just keep getting older. So, when all those life experiences happen, I had to say to myself, what does that mean? You know?
And my middle sister and I and my oldest sister used to talk about, well, my mother died young. I wonder who will be next. And then when Barbara died, it was like, okay. I guess I'm off the hook. And then, oh my goodness, I got older and older, and I made 47, and I made 49, and I made 51.
And it dawned on me that I really didn't have a road map for assuming I would age because nobody in my family had, especially the women. And so, as I began to get a little bit older and not take it for granted, but also say, okay. I am alive, and I want to make the most of it. I looked around for what I call mentors or role models.
And I have about 4 of them that I want to talk to about today, and I'll just jump off with the first one. I'm married at 21, and my husband was 31. And I was lucky enough to have a fantastic mother-in-law. Her name was Doris. And Doris was a very lively, fun, very caring human being, and great wonderful mother-in-law and grandmother.
And one of the things that I learned from her as I watched her age is how to approach getting old. And several things I learned from her was, 1, she said you need to constantly make friends all the time and make new friends because people go away, people die, and you always sort of want to replenish. So, you know, doing this project is another way to replenish friends and people who are younger because, hopefully, they'll be around for a while. And also, after her husband, my father-in-law passed away, I watched what she did with her life. And what I observed was she really decided to live life and to sort of figure out how to be a widow and how to enjoy life.
And so, she had almost 20 years of learning how to live independently and was an amazing role model. My next one is a woman named Mary Merriam, who is a woman I met through a quilting group. They were doing traditional old fashioned hand quilting. What I what I saw with her is, first of all, she was incredibly kind, and so that's a wonderful thing to see in people. And having read the book on loneliness, he talks about the impute importance of community.
And joining her group, it was a group of about a dozen women, and it was met on a morning, Tuesday morning in the city in the town hall in Conway. And we just sat around and did hand quilting, which is very quiet, very peaceful. And, she was very encouraging, and we probably met for almost 10 years before the book broke up. But what I learned from Mary was, she took care of her husband.
He had a stroke, and she was so loving and so kind and made a point of still getting to the quilt group. But she had to balance that new role that she had. And so, watching that experience was very moving. And then the next person within the group was the 99 year old woman, and her name was Dot. And Dot was another wonderful, wonderful example of how to age.
And she was a skinny little thing, I think maybe a little bit taller than me, but very slight. And she was carrying this big queen-size quilt. And I went to the door to help her open the door, and I said, let me carry that for you. And her response was, don't baby me.
So, I thought that was absolutely wonderful. And, again, that spirit, that feistiness that says, nobody's gonna just I'm not a shriveled up little old lady. She used to talk about what a blessed life she lived. And at some point, I talked to Mary about her, and it turned out her father died in his fifties.
Her own husband had died roughly around the same age, and she still had the courage to say, I'm blessed. And then the last person, her name is Ruth. And Ruth lived to 94, just recently passed away. And I knew her through the Mount Holyoke community. But the thing that Ruth taught me was as she aged, she had a lot of problems, health problems, and would be in and out of the hospital.
And last year, when she came home, they had her on oxygen, and she had this long tube that went on forever. And when I visited her, she was so feisty. She's like, wow. I'm not gonna carry this damn thing around forever. And she said, I am gonna get rid of this and get off of oxygen and be done with this.
And she actually did. And I think, you know, some people might have just resigned themselves, sat in a chair, and say, oh, poor me, and just kind of let fade out. There was nothing that was gonna fade out on her. I mean, at 94, she did eventually die, but spirit, her fight, her willingness to say, alright. That's what's happening today, but that's not gonna necessarily be what's happening tomorrow.
So, I think that I feel so fortunate to have learned from all of these four examples that I'm giving you, and there's plenty more I could do on. But how to approach life, not make certain assumptions, not stereotype yourself into certain behavior