THE SECRET OF LONGEVITY
November 29th 2006 06:28
This weekend I attended the 100th Birthday party of a dear friend. I’ll call her Mrs. G.
With descendants from all over the world, she enjoyed the party all week, including drives, theatre, at least three gatherings of friends, letters from the queen and a dozen other leading lights, hairdressing appointments, great-grandchildren on her knee, chatting all the time and looking about 75.
When I visit her home, she sits me down in a chair and takes herself out to the kitchen to prepare for me tea – or milo which she loves – and biscuits. I am not to embarrass her by going out to the kitchen to help. She is perfectly capable!
Having delivered my tea, with sweetmeats on a dainty china platter, she begins to talk – not in the past, but about the concert she attended last night and who she has seen this week. Her son, she says, is wonderful to her… Yes, he and his wife pay much mind to his mother. He calls her daily and takes her home to his house to sleep at the weekend. That way he can keep half an eye on her. But she doesn’t wish to meddle in their lives, and so stays focused on having her own home.
I remember her as the mother who always had a smile and a feed for all her children’s friends. On weekends the house was invariably full of thirty something youth from the church group. It was never any trouble to put together a spaghetti bolognaise for them.
She and her husband often played bridge with my parents on Saturday evenings. While my family would shush me up when I came home, Mrs G’s cards always lay on the table and she was taking a break in the kitchen, asking us what we did that night. She was a great theatre lover and, with her children, took in every show that arrived in town. They starred constantly in footy, music, tennis, sang in the national boys’ choir, and attended church every Sunday. On Saturdays we picnicked at the national park. While mums sat and knitted, fathers went to play golf, and we children had the free range of the great park to explore.
Her policy with the children, she always said, was that if she kept them busy they wouldn’t have time to get into trouble! What an exciting childhood they had, involved in sport, highland dancing, choirs, church, piano playing, theatre, entertaining all the other local children, caravan holidays, dressmaking (for children and theatre) – truly never a dull moment.
I never heard a bad word from her about anyone. There wasn’t time to waste on that sort of thing! Time only for faith, love and adventure. That, I believe, is the secret of longevity.
With descendants from all over the world, she enjoyed the party all week, including drives, theatre, at least three gatherings of friends, letters from the queen and a dozen other leading lights, hairdressing appointments, great-grandchildren on her knee, chatting all the time and looking about 75.
When I visit her home, she sits me down in a chair and takes herself out to the kitchen to prepare for me tea – or milo which she loves – and biscuits. I am not to embarrass her by going out to the kitchen to help. She is perfectly capable!
Having delivered my tea, with sweetmeats on a dainty china platter, she begins to talk – not in the past, but about the concert she attended last night and who she has seen this week. Her son, she says, is wonderful to her… Yes, he and his wife pay much mind to his mother. He calls her daily and takes her home to his house to sleep at the weekend. That way he can keep half an eye on her. But she doesn’t wish to meddle in their lives, and so stays focused on having her own home.
I remember her as the mother who always had a smile and a feed for all her children’s friends. On weekends the house was invariably full of thirty something youth from the church group. It was never any trouble to put together a spaghetti bolognaise for them.
She and her husband often played bridge with my parents on Saturday evenings. While my family would shush me up when I came home, Mrs G’s cards always lay on the table and she was taking a break in the kitchen, asking us what we did that night. She was a great theatre lover and, with her children, took in every show that arrived in town. They starred constantly in footy, music, tennis, sang in the national boys’ choir, and attended church every Sunday. On Saturdays we picnicked at the national park. While mums sat and knitted, fathers went to play golf, and we children had the free range of the great park to explore.
Her policy with the children, she always said, was that if she kept them busy they wouldn’t have time to get into trouble! What an exciting childhood they had, involved in sport, highland dancing, choirs, church, piano playing, theatre, entertaining all the other local children, caravan holidays, dressmaking (for children and theatre) – truly never a dull moment.
I never heard a bad word from her about anyone. There wasn’t time to waste on that sort of thing! Time only for faith, love and adventure. That, I believe, is the secret of longevity.
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