I met the most interesting woman today.

She's 88 years old. She was in the Navy in WW II (WAVES, a program of women helping with meals, clothing, and the fighting men's living quarters). She survived cancer.  She felt her life was rich even when they didn't have much. She threw a party when her husband died because that was what he wanted. She raised her children to be independent, including a daughter with cerebral palsy.

She doesn't believe in just accepting that things are what they are - her daughter had a disorder, but that didn't mean she was different. She knows things are different than they were when she was my age, but that doesn't mean that her generation had it right. She used the now dreaded r-word in reference to her daughter, with a laugh, because how much different could that daughter possibly be if she too ran off with the boy she loved, unmarried.

She confided to me in a quiet voice that she's a Democrat, and though she knows this is a Republican area and it was somewhat dangerous to admit that, it's the truth. I told her I understand. She smiled "you do?!" And then felt she could go on, as if it had been weighing her, "Well I don't think we should be in this war either. I watched them come back in pieces from Vietnam. Life is too special to be doing that to our children".

The ladies at the retirement home dwell on their impending deaths and keep her quiet about her political leanings.  She feels she's young enough still to have a say. Age is in your head, not in your bones. 

We ended up joining the same women's service organization in our little town - I did because my grandmother had been part of the local chapter back home, and she did because she needed an excuse to get away from the old ladies in the retirement home!

I told her I was glad to have met her, and I truly am. I can only hope to appreciate, respect, and love life as much as she does when it's battered me another 50 years.