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92 is the New 50
I’m off to Whiterock to see my mom this weekend. She’s 92 and enjoys freakishly superior health. Even after nearly 100 years she remains vibrant, current and active. It’s amazing.
She reads to her friends who have diminishing eyesight, gets a few things at the store for those who can’t get out and is somewhat of a superhero amongst her peers, often referred to as The Amazing Pat Lorange. (time to get her a cape and tights)
I love the reflection of incredible hair in the mirror.
She has a tub of library books delivered monthly and will dive into one for hours only to feel, as she will tell me, “a bit peckish” for a snack and realizes it’s 2:00 am, she hasn’t stopped reading since noon. And they aren’t beach books, they are the latest by experts on the economy, the internet, government and fossil fuel.
A few years ago a long-boarder took her down at a cross walk (he was mortified, visited her in the hospital, good kid, an accident) and she broke her wrist, the doctors were floored by her good health and amazing healing powers. They kept asking what meds she was on and had a hard time taking “none” for an answer. A couple things to note here; she’s been taking vitamins and minerals and whatever alternative supplements are touted as being good for you since the 70’s and she is from an indestructible generation that survived the depression, WWII and decades of wearing pantyhose.
She emails, surfs the net and gets outside pretty much every day. She is self sufficient and happy and has lived on her won since my dad died in ‘98.
She has no doubt she’ll see her 100th birthday and nor does anyone who knows her.
She lived a fascinating life growing up in England, meeting her Canadian husband during the war when their lines literally crossed - he was a signalman she was a phone operator, he stayed on the line after she patched through his call and he asked for a date.
My dad’s work took them to Mexico City where my brothers were born in ‘47 and ‘49 then onto Caracas, Havana and finally Spa, Belgium where I was born in ‘61. In ‘63 we were back in Canada and living a normal life in comparison to the ex-pat, maids, money and Mercedes years that they left behind. When my brothers and I reminisce about childhoods is as though we are from two different families. They grew up with young, tanned, cocktail-drinking, party-going wealthy parents. Mom was 40 and Dad 45 when I came along (planned) and b y then were an older sedate pair struggling to make ends meet. I never wanted for anything, had no idea that there had once been more money and ... I had Mom all to myself.
She sewed and I watched her, enthralled (but forever incapable of mimicking her wizardry with the machine). We went for long walks during which we talked about everything. They were walks with Buddha, or Yoda, my mom speaking to me as an equal even when I was quite little and she let me take bites of some meaty subjects.
She got into the health food thing in the 70’s and made a few “training” bread loaves that could have been mortared together to make a sturdy house, but the healthy baking got better. She did the Transcendental Meditation thing for awhile too. I recall her going into room all wound up and coming out like she had been filleted.
She always told me I could do anything.
When I was in my 20’s and living in my own apartment in downtown Montreal, regaling her with stories of late night escapades, she said it sounded like fun and I wondered if she envied my growing up times far more liberal than hers had been. A dad, some suitors and a husband, those were the men in her life. What fun it would have been to pub crawl through the 80’s with a 20 year old version of my mom as my wingman. She woulda knocked ‘em dead.
As much as I deny her getting older, she embraces it. She doesn’t look in the mirror and see an old woman who laments the passing of days but rather sees herself and thinks: “Look at you! Healthy, happy ... you’re fabulous Pat.”
My mother is a great broad, the best mom and a dear friend to many. I am looking froward to hanging out with her for the weekend.
As I have said throughout my life, I hope I grow up to be just like my mother. If all goes well I still have at least 40 years to keep working on it.
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My mother sat down and wrote about her life in longhand, had a friend type it up and now my brother is posting it on line. If you are interested in reading about a life well lived, visit www.patlorange.com
With Edie, her best pal since 1963. They have had a lot of laughs together.
