A One of A Kind Love

For this next post, I can not take the credit for gathering the story. All the credit goes to Humans of New York.

Although I can not take credit for the story or the images, I still find it important to share on this blog. I can not express how important recognizing the long and rigourous lives of the elderly. It needs to be remembered that they love, hurt, laugh, cry, and most importantly-live.




“I was nineteen. She was sixteen. Our dates were normally on Sunday. We didn’t do much of anything. We were conservative. I was a farmer. We weren’t those swinging type people. But every date was a little more cuddly. Then she took me to her senior prom. It was just ten miles from here—in Richmond. I was the only one there without a tuxedo. All those city folks didn’t know what to make of me. I can’t tell you when we fell in love. I can’t even tell you when I asked her to marry me. It was just natural. I think we were just sitting in the car and I gave her the ring. I don’t have many big moments to share. We were simple people. They were all happy days."




“We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in Branson, Missouri. On the drive home, she kept telling me that we were going the wrong way. She was very insistent. I didn’t fight her. I kept letting her turn around because I knew that eventually we’d hit the main road back to Michigan. I knew then. Her father had dementia. And so did his father. So I knew what was happening. Soon she started forgetting names. When it started getting really bad, she wanted to walk away. She was always trying to leave the house. I’d have to lie in front of the door to keep her from going. One morning I woke up and I couldn’t find her. I freaked out: ‘Where did she go? Where did she go?’ I ran outside and it was totally dark. Down the road there was a streetlight. And I could barely see her—crossing the road. I ran and I got her. But she fought me. She didn’t want to come back home.”





“I miss that we can’t go out and dance. Or visit other people. We used to volunteer at the senior center every Wednesday. She’d play the piano, and I’d turn the pages for her. The hymns were some of the last things she remembered. Music was her life. But one day she wouldn’t play anymore. And I told the staff that they’d need to find someone else. So we stay here now. But I don’t see this as a curse. It’s an honor. This is what the Lord has given me to do. She has served this family her entire life. And now it’s my turn to serve her. I might not have her mentally. But I have her. I can still make her smile. I can make bubbly noises, and blow on her, and she’ll smile. Every morning we’ll sit in this chair and we’ll cuddle until noon. I rock this lady more than I rock my grandchildren. She likes to slip her hand under my shirt to feel my skin. And she still likes to kiss. Every once in awhile she’ll reach up and give me a kiss. Sometimes she starts ‘yakking.’ She doesn’t say actual words. And it doesn’t make any sense. But I never tell her to be quiet, because it’s better than nothing at all.”

Old Age Inspiration of the Day

Inspirational Oldie of the Week: Olive Riley

Grammyism: "I don't know how to work this thing!" (Referring to her phone)

(20 October 1899- 12 July 2008) 

Olive Riley created a blog called The Life of Riley in February of 2007 at the age of 107 years old. Olive, who called blogging "blobbing" was inspired to make her blog by a documentary film maker, Mark Rubbo who named his documentary All About Olive. The documentary was based on the lives of people who have lived to be 100 years old or older. 

Although olive did not make fame within the press world, she sure did inspire and gain adoration from the blogging world. 

Mark Rubbo announced her death through a blog post on Olive's blog:

It’s funny to say this, but doing the blog with her, doing all the typing, the photographs, the movies, has been a big part of my life this last year, something that many friends couldn’t quite understand.

“Why all this effort for an old lady? they’d ask, “Are you in a hurry to age yourself?” (Me being 70 this year)

Quite the contrary. Olive Riley’s been keeping me young... if a woman who left school in 1914 can embrace the internet in her 106th year, what is there you can’t do, friend?

I was gob smacked by this dame with a memory like a hard drive. At 104, Olive was able to remember conversations she’d had in 1908 and bring them to life. Amazing!

I knew I’d not only found my film star, but I that I’d been given a reprieve from worries {about my own death}.

Post Olive, there’d be no sense of having an age limit, no downward slope for me!
 

The moral of Olive's story is that we don't have to let youth escape us no matter our age! As long as we open ourselves to the wonders of generations, our hearts can be young forever. 

Little Old Donald: What a guy!

Grammyism: "Somebody's gotta do it."

"And Im old Donald."

I do not know his last name, nor do I know the name of his parents. I do not know what he stands for, nor do I know his life story.

Donald does not know my last name, nor does he know the name of my parents. Donald does not know what I stand for, nor does me know my life story.

I have only met Donald once.

In the middle of the North Brookfield Senior Center, chatting with a group of other volunteers for the Senior Memoir Writing Workshop, I feel a shaky hand, firmly grip my shoulder.

I look over to my right side where a wrinkled profile of a man's face is now the new caption of the young girl who was just standing next to me. Old Donald had each of his arms around the shoulders of both myself, and the girl.

I did not know who he was. I couldn't help but think that I would never build up the nerve to approach two people randomly, but perhaps old age would build up my courage. What would I have to lose.

Old Donald taught me a lesson: You can't allow fear of embarrassment to keep you from doing or trying new things, even if it is as simple as confidently approaching people you have never met before.

As silly as it sounds, Donald inspired me with his small gesture and reminded me that half of the embarrassing experiences that most people in their teenage years view as life-changing, but in reality, those dreaded times will be minuscule memories by the time we are Old Donald's age.

Moral of the story: Don't sweat the small stuff!