94 Year old mother of a friend of mine recently chose to go to a retirement community. She told my friend, her son that she now recognizes "her purpose". It is to "Love and encourage people everyday. And help them to realize how important exercise is." She rides her stationery bike five times a week and walks everyday roughly about a mile. I have met this woman once and she stands about 4' 11. She had open heart surgery at 92. She started going to a rehab exercise prior to the retirement community. She encouraged everyone to use the workout room that was virtually empty to the point when she left people had to schedule to get into the crowded room. A powerhouse of woman that is now devoting herself to get her house mates off of walkers and into the exercise room. She recently noticed a man in his late 80's that she felt did not need a walker. She politely inquired to his children visiting one day "Your Dad doesn't need use a Walker." The man is now one of the many people she is encouraging to walk independently again.
I had a great chance to talk to my two surviving Uncles this last weekend. Uncle Sam is 92 and walks incredibly careful. But his sense of humor is recklessly fun. He said he was born in El Paso and then as baby walked with his family back to Houston. He said "I was a strong baby, I walked all the way."
My other Uncle, Uncle Babe is 86 and looks fantastic. He told me that retirement is deadening.
It's not hard to think, "Well I guess I should get ready to die." But he loves to swim and read.
And his sense of humor is wildly active and also subtle. He introduced his beautiful wife as
his caretaker. Almost all of my relatives in the room broke up laughing from his well known deadpan delivery. After which Uncle Babe drops his head to hide the biggest smile.
Sure we endure difficulties in our lives. But we also can choose to enjoy life.
It takes a conscious decision to believe we can find our purpose when we feel like we have lost it. Even when it seems like it is raining crap on your life. Your mind needs to be your umbrella.
You have to stay determined.
It's like working on a muscle in the gym. If we stay on it we can build it..."On Purpose".
I am finding plenty of older folks who choose to do just that.
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World's Oldest Living Personal Trainer! There's a Texas-based play title if I ever heard it! This lady's story begs for a video interview. The music store. In the 60's, I loved taking a stack of 45s into one of the two listening booth and staying in there till there came the eventual rap, rap, rapping at my door. My Mother shopped for sheet music, sometimes it was an appliance. I bought my first personal stereo at the music store...a PORTABLE Magnavox, with a handle. With speakers attached, it must have weighed 25 pounds and was the size of a small trunk, but there was that bloody handle. My first albums, Cat Stevens and The Doors. It was a changing society, and music was a way of putting voice to that which we felt in our hearts, but which also was trapped inside by the arcane mores of a disintegrating culture. Ahhhhh, the good ol' days. We have survived in spite of ourselves. Music has become lost in the interstitial barrage of images and sound that assault us and distract us from reveling in the silence of our own thought... especially when the iPod needs charging, or you're out of wi-fi range. ;-)
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