Julia's Story Julia reflects on what her life might look like in sixty years. She explains her values and emphasis on how she strives to be someone her family and others can lean on. Scroll to Listen Julia's Story 00:00 / 03:43 Jonathan: “When somebody says to you ‘in 50 or 60 years you will be in your late 70s’ and let’s assume that you're moderately healthy, what comes to your head?” Julia: “So trying to look into the future like that, I say what first comes to mind is thinking about my family. Um, I have an older sister who right now is 24 so 60 years from now, she’ll be 84. And then I have two younger brothers, one who is about to be 18 so he’ll be 78 from now. Then I have a youngest brother who just turned 14 so he’ll be 74 but I hope that 60 years from now we’re all still close together–I hope we’re all still around. But um, I see family being a big part of my life. I always love looking forward to going home. I’m from Eastern, Mass. so if I want to spend a weekend back home I have that ability to just drive back. Um, I hope that that’s the kind of relationship that I have 60 years from now. I hope that I’m able to still hold onto that connection with my siblings.” Jonathan: “Do you think that this family relationship is equally as important to your brothers and sister? Do you think they would say the same?” Julia: “I hope they would say the same! Um, I’m not positive I mean my older sister–she is very–she heavily prioritizes relationships with people so outside of family she is very much so always putting herself out and trying to stay connected with her friends from highschool and from college. On the contrary, I’d say I’m the opposite of her. I like having friends and I love knowing people but also I’ve always been a busy person and I’m okay with doing my own thing and if I know people and have people to hang out with that’s great but if not, I’m still okay with continuing to be individual. I think I will continue to keep a strong relationship with my siblings and if I have a spouse, them–being able to keep a strong relationship with them and their family ‘cause I love having big get-togethers and catching up with people. And I value the relationship with a few people as long as it's a strong one and genuine.” Jonathan: “Assuming that–maybe it’s the wrong assumption–but assuming for the moment that your partner/you’re married or whatever in 50 or 60 years, how important is it that that person be close to your siblings?” Julia: “Um, I think it’s pretty important. I mean, right now I’m in a relationship and I don’t know what 60 years will look like but I’ve been in a relationship for almost 3 years and I value being very close with his family and they are people that I’m very close with and I wanna have a really close relationship and be someone that they can turn to if they need anything!”

Roberta Liebman shares with Alisson Aleman the remarkable role that neighborhood organizations have played in some of the most significant moments of her life. They have provided her and her family with support and companionship through some of the most challenging moments. Bert's Story Roberta Liebman shares with Alisson Aleman the remarkable role that neighborhood organizations have played in some of the most significant moments of her life. They have provided her and her family with support and companionship through some of the most challenging moments. Scroll to listen Bert's Story 00:00 / 04:15 I think my story began about fifteen years ago, my son and his wife who lived in California, they both by a bizarre coincidence were diagnosed with brain tumors. They were different types but they were serious. And my son Jamie recognized that they were going to be in big trouble. They didn’t have a lot of resources to help them and they were both needing brain surgery. So Jamie spoke to some friends and said we’re gonna need help and the friends said, okay, we’ll do it. And they made sure that whenever food was needed, whenever a ride was needed to the doctor someone was there to help them. Someone was even there to help them sort through the pile of mail. And all of that was incredibly helpful to a family that was in terrible shape. It was this neighborhood that took care of them. When it was over, we were struck by how extraordinary it was that people just rallied around to help and lend support. And about that time, some of our neighbors began saying you know we can have an organization and we would help eachother, are you interested? And we had just had this extraordinary demonstration of how effective it could be so we said of course, yes we would. And my husband Ernie was on the board and he helped deal with some of the finances. I helped with a number of volunteer things, I had been a volunteer in many other situations and it was beautiful. And then the organization grew, people began really recognizing what a fine thing this was. Unfortunately, Ernie’s health was not great and our house was not safe so we had to move. We moved here to Northampton, our son and daughter in-law made us comfortable, they were living upstairs. But people here began saying you know have you heard of this village-to-village network maybe we should have something like Northampton Neighbors. Well, we had already seen this was a really good idea. So, of course we said yes. And we both prepared to be volunteers, except Ernie wasn’t doing very well and I fell down. I had to say I need some help. My arm is broken, I can’t drive to therapy. And boom, Northampton Neighbors was there and it turned out to be the nicest possible way to meet people in my community as well as to receive the help I desperately needed. I think it’s very easy to offer help, it’s really fun to be a volunteer. The thing that's hard are to learn to accept is to ask for help, we’re expected to be independent and to take care of ourselves. And to recognize that it is okay to say I need help. You know there is a certain level of isolation that older people experience, and making it possible for people to join a group where there all kind of social activities, there’s physical activities, there’s even a group called, I think it’s called FIG for food information group. But, I think it broadens the whole sense of how we all work together and how we all need each other.

< Back Nikki's Story Nikki describes her travels to Manzanillo Cuba where she and her fellow volunteers created and conducted a Kids Camp for the children of Manzanillo and its surrounding villages. She expresses the importance of perspective taking, treating others with compassion and understanding the true impact one seemingly small act can have on the lives of others. 00:00 / 02:38 As a kid in highschool I started getting involved in community outreach programs initially starting with the youth perish in my local town so there I kind of learned to have a greater appreciation for volunteering and just people in general so I think that when it came to getting a worldly kind of perspective the first time I really experienced that was when I was chosen to go on an outreach trip to Manzanillo Cuba so the basis of the whole trip was to put on a kids camp is what we called it we ran a bunch of donation sports drives in the US and then brought all of those sports equipment over to Cuba and in Ramonas we were in electricity was kind of hard to come by and in ther individual home one of the things that we brought with us to Cuba my dad had actually donated and one of the things he had always told me growing up was to leave a frisbee in the back of your car in case you get stuck somewhere and your bored or its a nice day and you want to do something fun so one thing he found online was these glow in the dark frisbees you press the button and these neon light start popping up and when you threw it it spiraled in the air and it looked really cool and so we had a couple of them growing up and I had always loved them so he had bought a bunch and donated them to the cause and I remember our first night in Ramonas we broke out the glow in the dark frisbees and me and one of the other volunteers stood out and threw it across one of the open fields it was like lightning had struck and these people had never seen anything like it before children, adults, everyone flooded over to where we were and everyone wanted a turn throwing the magical light up frisbee through the night sky and I remember hearing these whoops and hollars and screams just joyful cheers of such a small kind of thing in my mind something that I had grown up with and now I wouldnt really think os as too monumental but for someone who has never seen something like that before I think that it again brought that blissful sense of innocence back into my perspective and not only for myself reflective back on it but I hope to think that those people who volunteered and locals can think back to that beautiful starry night in Cuba, seeing that beautiful rainbow frisbee flying across the night sky for the first time and yeah that was definitely one of the most prominent kind of visual memories that I have Previous Next

< Back Ivana's Story Ivana shares a vulnerable story about her battle with anxiety and depression as a young adult in high school. She talks about how her experiences have influenced who she is today and memorializes this struggle with a tattoo on her back. 00:00 / 04:12 There is a saying, I'm not sure if you've come across it, where when it goes: “Trauma builds character”. And I definitely feel like that is something that is very true for me and how I've been able to see the world differently. There were a lot of traumatic things that I was exposed to at a young age and then also experienced myself. And I feel like the culmination of all of that led to a very, very dark point that started in high school, my junior year. That was when I first realized what anxiety was and what depression was because the symptoms were actually starting to appear within myself. And it took a lot of solitude and because… When I was going through a lot of that stuff in high school, I felt like I couldn't have any, or I didn't have anybody that I could turn to. And for a while, I wholeheartedly owed my existence for me still being here to my sister, honestly, because during that same period where I felt like I couldn't rely on my parents or couldn't rely on my friends and stuff and I kind of in turn only relied on myself. My sister, I didn't even ask her to help me - she kind of just saw and she offered her help. And I feel like that was the first person that really like listened to me, tried to really find resources to get me in treatment and stuff. My sister also has like a very mature mentality as well. So I feel like there's conversations that I was able to have - that she would be able to contribute to in a way that a lot of other people couldn't. And I think it got to a point of me realizing that a lot of what I was feeling was consequences of certain habits that I was either doing or certain habits that I had in terms of my mindset and stuff. So I went through a very transitional period of trying to really fix my mind and instead of have it be an enemy, turn it into my friend. And now that I think about it, I feel like this habit was something that was kind of enforced in me because I wasn't an athlete for so long. Like we would have to go back, for example, on my basketball team, we would have certain days where we would go watch films from my previous games and stuff like that. And at that point, you're literally going through past mistakes that you made, your coach is telling you what you did wrong, and here's how to fix it for the next time. And I feel like it could be as simple as that for situations. And I feel like that is my intention of wanting to share my story. One, I never thought that life would be like this. There was a good year/two-year period where I thought by the time I was 18, that would have been the end of my life. I'm very blessed every single day to be living the life that I do and to have the opportunity to experience life in the way that I do. I feel like I would not have been able to want to have this for everybody in life until I was able to learn a lot of things through solitude and go through those hard times to become more empathetic and become more emotionally understanding and being able to be more gracious to people and stuff. I do have a tattoo on my back that says, no rain, no flowers. And that is a tattoo that I live by because especially from that hard period of time, I'm able to experience true beauty now. And you cannot experience the beauty of flowers without having a little rain. Previous Next

< Back Natalie's Story 00:00 / 03:50 Previous Next

< Back Abby's Story Abby talks about her adventures while traveling. She talks about her experience studying abroad and traveling as a young kid and how that shaped her into the person she is. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 04:02 Basically, growing up, traveling was a really big part of my life, one special one that I remember was when I was going into my junior year in high school, they took us to Peru for 3 weeks. For 2 of the weeks we were living on a boat on the Amazon River which was really really cool. We were kind of like helping college students who were doing their thesis or dissertations. We were basically going in and out of the Amazon Rainforest and helping them collect data. It was an awesome experience. It made me look at my life differently, it was my first time traveling without my family. But also while we were there we were able to go to a little village for the day and the villagers just showed us around their homes but we were hanging out with all the little kids and we brought them school supplies and gifts but it was just awesome to see, it was like Christmas day for them when we came they were so excited and that really put a lot of things into perspective because coming from America we just have a lot more things than other countries do, so it was just a really awesome experience and it really shows me a lot about life and how materialistic things like that doesn’t really matter. From that traveling really became my passion, I knew I loved going to new places and experiencing new cultures and seeing different cultures. So, I knew when I came to college, I was going to study abroad no matter what. I went abroad in Fall 2021, and I went to Verona, Italy. It was one of the best experiences of my life. It was my favorite semester in college so far. I was able to travel a ton, I met a lot of new people, I learned so much about myself, I grew as a person. You kind of learn to be comfortable with being uncomfortable if that makes sense, you just are kind of thrown into situations that you usually wouldn’t be in and you kind of just got to figure it out. Like it's been an experience that pushed me so far out of my comfort zone, but it was amazing and so worth it. You just kind of got to learn to just go with the flow and stuff won’t always go the way you planned and that’s okay. My first trip was to Lake Como in Italy. It was one of my favorite trips on that I went on there, it was beautiful and so fun but I think what made it one of my favorite trips was the people I was with and we were just hanging out and having fun and getting to know each other because we were only 3 weeks in so it wasn’t like we knew each other super well. My last trip was to London, basically to London we were just being the biggest tourists you could be. We were doing all the touristy things, we went and saw the London Eye, we saw Great Ben, we saw the Parliament, we saw Buckingham Palace, everything that was stereotypical and touristy about London, we did it. My current job right now which I love is at our study abroad office at UMass. I basically just encourage kids to go abroad and tell them that they can do it, I know it's scary, but you got it. I am working for Teach for America when I graduate, before this year I've always known about it but never thought I'd be able to get in. Previous Next

< Back Megan's Story Megan (20) tells a story about the most important person in her life, her grandfather “Poppy”. She talks about a road trip to his log cabin in Vermont, the many stops on the way, and their special relationship. 00:00 / 04:41 The most important person in my life was my grandfather, Poppy. We were really close because he lived down the road from me growing up. I was over there all the time whenever my parents were working or needed to do something. My grammy, she would always have cinnamon raisin toast with butter ready for me anytime I was there with a glass of chocolate milk. And Poppy was so adventurous. I didn't even realize how old he was. He would ride bikes with us and play basketball. It was always a really great time there. One time, I remember going over there. My parents didn't just drop me off. They stayed. What happened was my and Poppy, they were going to move further north. Then they ended up moving to their dream log cabin in Vermont. And this was a really special place. It had a river, and it had a train too that would shake the house, but it was now 3 hours away. Even then, he would drive to, like, to see me play and, like, my band performances and softball games and everything. In March of 2022, my grammy had passed away in a car accident. And so, because my puppy was always putting everybody before himself, he didn't know that he had cancer. And so, after that accident and my grammy's passing, he received his lung cancer diagnosis. And so, he ended up having to leave that Vermont log cabin, and he had to move in with my parents. Now he was starting chemotherapy and would require a lot more assistance. I was away at school. And so, during this whole time when Poppy was receiving these treatments, I really wasn't there. It wasn't until the summer break when I was able to come home that I saw him again and we were able to spend so much time together. It was really like how it was when I was younger when he lived so close. It was really awesome. We went fishing. We would just like old times, we would it was really great. But then he decided that he no longer wanted to continue with the chemotherapy because, like I said, it was taking a great toll on him and his body, and the risk wasn't worth it at that point. He made the decision to stop, and it was really sad. But I just wanted to, like, enjoy every second with him because he is so special to me. During this summer, every weekend, he would ask me to take a ride up to Vermont to go visit his house, his log cabin, because he hadn't been up there since, you know, months prior, in August of 2022. We went on a big road trip to Vermont. It was really a road trip to remember. He sat in the passenger seat playing DJ. He brought along all of his CDs and was, like, switching them every so often, but we made many stops on the way. We stopped at each and every one of his old houses. We stopped to at old friends' houses, old churches. We stopped at his old realtor's office and old restaurants that he would have great memories. So, this whole trip took us a really long time. But whenever he would say, hey, Megan. Like, can we just stop at this one more place? I would say, yes. Of course. So, I would just make sure that I would say yes to everything because I knew that this was really special for him. When we got to Vermont, we ate frozen meals that my mom prepared for us, and we slept in sleeping bags. And we just enjoyed the time in the moment. After that trip, in August, I had to go back to school in September, so it was really hard to leave. In November of 2022, I got a call from my parents saying that, Poppy had had a stroke and that I should probably come home. So, I did not take this lightly. I had this gut feeling, and so I just drove home that night just to be safe. And, when I got home, he wasn't awake at that point. He wasn't talking or anything. But I got to see him one last time. And everybody that came over, all my family members, we all slept over at my house just to make sure that everybody was there. And then the next morning, he took his final breath. It was Veteran’s Day. So, when the funeral home came, they put a flag over him because he was a veteran of the army, and so that was really special to everyone there. And then we saw him drive off, and we just stood there and watched him turn the last corner. Previous Next

< Back Eddie's Story Eddie reflects on his senior year during the pandemic as a time of confusion and inner conflict, despite appearing to have a stable life on the surface. Through isolation and daily meditation, he realized his friendships and sense of identity were not as authentic as he believed, especially due to pressures around masculinity and ego. Ultimately, the experience became a period of deep self-reflection and personal growth that helped him better understand himself. 00:00 / 03:54 My story is from the pandemic, yep, a senior in high school. And we were basically on lockdown, as you know, everyone was on lockdown. And during this time, I was quite confused on where I was in my life. I mean, it seemed like everything was working out. I had friends, I had, I was about to graduate, come to UMass, you know, things were looking okay. Um, but there's a snagging sense deep inside me that just felt like something was off. Yeah. And so I couldn't enjoy the activities I normally enjoyed, um, which include playing basketball, which, in, you know, just hanging out with friends. So, I began to just kind of question things and feel a sense of needing to retreat in my own layer. Um. And so I went inward, and I started to meditate quite frequently, nearly 30 minutes a day. And what I learned through this was a lot of patterns I had built up to convince myself, almost, I was happy because these were the aspects of life that I've worked so hard for my whole life. To be, uh, admitted to college, you know, to be, um, in a, in a, in a sustainable friend group. The problem was, though, I wasn't in college; I was still in high school. And I was not in a friend group that was truly sustainable, um, even though I was telling myself I was. Um, and that was really hard for me to like swallow, um, because it was everything that I had built up in my mind to what was the perfect friend group, you know, it's just a group of, um, kind of guys and, admittedly, very just childish and unserious and foolish. And, um, that, that wasn't the bad part necessarily, but this sense of quote unquote, toxic masculinity, um, was definitely present in a way where I felt like I could not express my heart, felt like I could not express who I was cause I didn't know who I was because every moment was surrounded by this need to be, act strong or something or act like tough or act like I can't or I'm too good for, um, my expression of singing or, or, uh, any kind of dancing or, um, even just complimenting others or, um, feeling, like, pride is the only emotion I can show, which is really stupid. Um, but I'm a pretty prideful guy by nature, and just having that around me was, I guess, that's why I attracted. So I was, I Learned a lot that it really wasn't as, um, important to me to impress others, to have this pride, to have this ego, to not challenge my friends, to not challenge, um, the status quo of being a man. Um, and, and, and just letting myself sit with that fact was very uncomfortable. Um, but I think the meditation was what really propelled me. And so this transformation, basically finding my inner truth, um, was doing this inner work during Covid. Um, and while COVID was genuinely, um, a terrible time for many, for me, it was a time of self-blossoming and growth, and I wouldn't be who I am. Previous Next

< Back Gail's Story, 2024 Allie and Gail discuss Gail’s early childhood years and her struggle with loneliness and isolation, due to how people viewed her because her sister was Autistic. Gail discusses as she grew up how she experienced loneliness, how she advocated for autism in her teaching career, and how she overcame isolation. 00:00 / 02:56 n my younger years, I grew up, with a mom who was mentally ill and a sister who was severely autistic. I endured years of shunning with my sister whenever I would go out because her social skills were really rudimentary. And, when we would go somewhere, there were plenty of times when her behavior was not good, so people shunned her. I began to fear rejection, and I still do today. Loneliness took over when I was with my sister, and I was rejected or felt that way. Since I had been so involved with an autistic person, I began to care for her as others, and others with my mother because no there was nobody else to care for them. I had a mother, but her mental illness limited our relationship, which I so desired. So that was more loneliness. I I had no one to talk to. So, I just buried my feelings. I was embarrassed to speak to friends about my life. I feared being a failure with friends that I had, and I tried to smile and laugh. I used to try to joke a lot, but I never told anybody about my house, things that were going on. And I'd never developed close friendships. I had lots of friends, but I didn't have any close friendships. And I find that even today, two years after my sister has passed, that I almost need to take a course to help me attain close friendships. And I took a quote from the book that I really enjoyed. It says, if you don't let people in and you don't let yourself get too close, you can't get stomped out again. Loneliness seems to be the antidote against threat of hurt, although it imprisons you. And that's how I was. I just didn't I, I would talk to people, but I would be afraid to go too far. My risk of loneliness has been very high. Because I had adverse childhood experiences, both mental illness and severe autism left me afraid of life. So in in search of therapy, I was able to get a wonderful therapist. I mean, she has been everything to me. I spent ten years with her, and she helped me get past my struggle struggles. She also worked with me to meet people and to become caring, and I feel very, very lucky because of it. Previous Next

< Back Sam's Story In this story, Sam discusses her passion for women's health through her own life experiences. Sam's college experience has allowed her to surround herself with groups of people who lift up and support one another. 00:00 / 02:57 Sam: I would consider myself the typical College student. I am currently pursuing a degree in public health with a focus on women's health. Based on my personal and family experiences, I have become a really strong advocate for women's health, and my mom was a big influence in that she raised me to always kind of put yourself forward and never take no for an answer. And my friends have also instilled that, and they've been an inspiration in my life. My mom was a big factor in influencing my decision to go into public health and women's health specifically. Sam: She has a reproductive condition called endometriosis, which I inherited from her. And she kind of always made sure that health comes first as physical and mental health before you do anything else, because if you can't be your best self, then you're not going to be of service or helping others. Joining a sorority in College, I found a really solid group of friends where women support one another. That's kind of like the core of our friendship is we're going to push each other to do our best and be our best selves. I specifically have probably four or five made friends where we all just like, go big or go home in our friendship. Sam: And that's been really inspiring and public health because I want to do good for them and support them as women as well, because I had only been in a class of maybe 15 my whole life. So my freshman year classes were 300 lectures, and I was very nervous that I would kind of get lost and fall behind in my academics, which are very important to me. But my mom reminded me to be an advocate for myself and use the voice that I have. I was able to push through and make it a home, really. In high school, I did a club called ModelUN, where it was like a mock trial debate team. Sam: And one of the projects that we did was really influential in my decision to go to public health. Also, we were talking about sanitation and refugees in developing countries. So when I got to College and I realized that I could do that for a major, I was like, oh, let's do this. This is so interesting and tied into women's health. I mean, I have a voice. I wanted to be able to use it for those who are afraid to or are able to. And that's really where I am now. That's what got me here. Previous Next

< Back Sophia's Story Sophia reflects on her difficult high school experience after transferring schools, which led to isolation, academic struggles, and severe depression. Over time, this culminated in a crisis during junior year, but support from counselors, teachers, and an alternative program director helped her begin to recover. Through patience, understanding, and gradual progress, she regained hope and was able to successfully graduate on time. Ultimately, the experience taught her the importance of accepting support from others and recognizing her own resilience. 00:00 / 04:30 I feel like mostly where I really saw change and how I saw myself was in my senior year. Halfway through freshman year, I decided to transfer by myself to my local public school, and that is where I would say everything started to crumble and fall apart. I really struggled with making any friends, especially since it was halfway through the school year. Everybody already had their established friend groups. Then I'm also a very shy person, so that just all compounded into me not having anyone to be with in my classes. I would avoid going to lunch and eating, and that manifested itself into me, staying home from school. I would not go for days at a time, and I ended up almost failing every single class in my freshman year. And this repeated itself, this process of me staying home for weeks at a time for my sophomore and my junior year, all the way up until my senior year where I really felt hopeless. That that entire the entire process of me, like, not going to school, from freshman year onwards caused me to develop pretty severe depression and anxiety, which that high school experience really brought the depression out. I ended up, in my junior year making an attempt on my life because of the loneliness, because I had saw online, on social media that all of my friends were hanging out on a day that I had decided to stay home. And that was really just, like, my breaking point, and I felt like everything was pointless and hopeless. Like, seeing the amount of people that came for me that cared about me really showed me that my life was valuable, but I still struggle to find the value. I felt broken. I felt like something was truly wrong with me. I felt like I wasn't meant to live a good life. I remember I wrote that in my journal. Like, I'm not meant maybe I'm meant to just be unhappy. My guidance counselors had to step in, and they had to place me into this alternative program that my high school offered. And I had gone from honors classes to being put into the college prep. I was I connected myself worth to my academic success. And seeing that I like, I couldn't handle the work of the honors classes, that just really made me feel just cemented the fact that I was different from my friends, that I was that I wasn't well, that I was not doing well mentally, and that just really broke me. When I first got put into the program, I knew that it was going to help me. I knew that I was put into it to help me. That's what all my counselors said, my teachers, my mom. That's what they all said to me. So, I started going through the program. I had a lot of support, particular from the program. I director, her name was miss Mac, and she would always give me kindness and give me grace. There would be days where I would go for just an hour, and I would get overwhelmed and anxious. And I would ask to leave, or I wouldn't come in until noon. She still always welcomed me into the program with old open arms. With her help and also with the help of my teachers, they talked to them about how I was feeling. I felt like they wouldn't give me any grace, but they were the most, they were so understanding. And I think just having their grace, having their kindness, just knowing that they wanted me to succeed really helped give me the hope that I could actually graduate, on time with all of my classmates and all of my peers, that I could actually do the things that I had set out for myself to do at the beginning of the year when I thought that I couldn't get through it, when I thought that I couldn't even, like, make it out of bed. For senior year, me at the end of the year versus senior year, me at the beginning of the year, completely different people. By the end of the year, I saw that all of my hard work actually did pay off and that I actually was going to be able to walk with all of my friends, to graduate with all of my friends. I felt like, at the beginning, I felt like I wasn't doing anything with my life, but not but towards the end, I felt like there was something that I could be that I could do. Like, even though I had gone through all of this gone through all of this suffering that I could, in fact, get it all done. So, I'm really thankful to those people in my life, that senior year because without them, I don't think I would have managed to graduate on time. I don't think I would have even been able to start my college career when I did. It just taught me that it's hard for me to rely on people, but I do need to rely on people in order to succeed. Previous Next

< Back Annabel's Story Annabel, who recently uprooted her life in North Carolina and moved to Northampton, MA, discusses how she ended up living in the city and her close familial relationships that led her there. 00:00 / 03:21 Stephanie: Speaking of Northampton, how did you even end up here? Like, how did you know this town? Because it is so small. Annabel: It is so small. I had been visiting here for a number of years because my daughter, who is a writer, and her husband is a publisher, they were living in Northampton and were - and Amherst and Northampton both have a huge community of writers. I ended up visiting frequently, and then 12 years ago, almost 13 years ago, they had a child who was born four months early. And she only weighed a pound and a half, and ended up having a lot of medical crises. She had a feeding tube and a trach. Stephanie: Oh, my God… Annabel: And, ended up spending four hundred and [sic] days in three different hospitals. Thank God she was in Massachusetts because she had some fabulous care here. Stephanie: Yeah. Annabel: She is doing really really well now. Um, and if you didn’t know, if you didn’t see the scar in her neck you wouldn’t know she had a trach. And, ironically, as a two year old, I had a trach… Stephanie: Oh… Annabel: Because of a really bad case of bronchial pneumonia, and ended up with a trach. So, we may be the only grandmother team… Stephanie: Yeah, that has… Annabel: that have the trach scars. Anyway, so I came up here a great deal while she was in the hospital - or, those 3 hospitals. And finally, I just thought, “I want to move there. I want to be near her,” so that was the reason I ended up here. And I’m so glad. I’m almost 75, and if you had told me I would make friends as good as any friends I’ve ever had I would not have believed it. So, I count my blessings that I ended up here. Stephanie: Yeah, that sounds really, that everything worked out, basically. Annabel: It did. It really did. Stephanie: Yeah. And was it hard making friends here? Annabel: I think at first, because I didn’t think that I could ever make friends like the ones I left behind, particularly back in North Carolina, I wasn’t reaching out. But finally, my daughter is best friends with another writer, whose mother moved here from California, and both of them kept saying “You’ll love each other if you get together!” and we instantly did. And then, I joined a church at the same time as another friend and we’ve become best friends. So I'm just amazed. I did not expect - I knew I would be happy here because of my daughter’s family. And there’s another family, they’re very close to me and I love them. I didn’t think I’d have peers as friends, but I do, and I’m so glad. Yeah. Previous Next