May MacDonald is a retired widow who celebrated her 90th birthday in May. She is a former social service employee, mother of 6, grandmother of 10 and great-grandmother of 8 and clearly enjoying her retirement! May is a brain gymnast – an avid card player, lover of games, puzzles and current events. She describes herself as a happy, outgoing person who loves spending time with her family and friends.
RT: Do you feel comfortable saying your age today?
May: Yes very much so!
RT: And have you always felt comfortable saying your age?
May: Yes, always.
RT: Have there been any situations where you haven’t been comfortable?
May: No, I can’t recall any.
RT: So what do you attribute your comfort to?
May: Well, the truth. Be honest about things. You can’t change your age. Whether you look your age or don’t look your age, that’s how old you are. I was born in 1921 and that’s the way it is.
RT: What events in your life have made you aware of your age?
May: I was married at 20 while the war was on and my husband went off to war for six years so I went back to work – I worked with the government as a civil servant. Then my husband came back from overseas, well he wasn’t the same person. When you’re that far apart from each other for so long, well we struggled it out and started to have a family.
I love kids and so I always loved being pregnant! We had six kids, four daughters and then two sons, each 2 years apart. Well it was an experience of course and I was a stay-at-home mom with each one.
As the years went by, raising the kids was enjoyable, really enjoyable because I was the type of mother who was proud of my children. As the kids got older I didn’t go back into the work force until my youngest son was in school. Then I separated from my husband because things were going from bad to worse. He was sort of married to his brother more so than with me – he’d get his paycheck for the month and his brother always needed money so he’d give it to him and say, well I’ll give it back to you tomorrow but tomorrow never came. It was a struggle so I couldn’t take any more and I finally separated – he was seeing somebody else and that gave me an out.
That’s when I went back to the work force.
RT: How old were you then?
May: Well, my oldest was 16 so I was about 40.
RT: And how was it going back to work at 40?
May: I had to go back and do some courses. I didn’t know where to start so thought I’d go and take some courses – the math system had changed and I went back to school and got a job with Social Services which worked out great.
My husband at that time was the Director of Social Services and he was on his own…
RT: Oh so this was a new relationship?
May: Yes, a new relationship developed from that…I was his right-hand and we got along really well. Then we married and I didn’t have to work anymore. And I haven’t worked since!
RT: Did you miss working?
May: Not really, no. I had a good life and the kids were constantly coming home – we’re very family-oriented and I loved it when they all came over – everything took place at our home. Unfortunately my husband died in 1988 when he was 62. He’d never been sick all his life and then got cancer of the esophagus and just went down. It just ravaged him. It all happened so fast.
RT: How old were you when he passed away? How old were you when you were widowed?
May: I was three years older than him, so I was 65.
RT: What happened for you then?
May: Well, my husband left me in a financially good position so I just carried on. I had a couple of college students who lived with me and it helped to fill the gap and take my mind off it.
Previous to my husband’s death, I’d had my deaf brother living with me and he’d gotten cancer and died. There was a big space – there was something very badly missing – and I thought, “What can I do to fill this?” So I took in a couple of students and it worked out great. Two were still there when my husband passed away and they were a comfort to me as was my family.
Then my sister and I went to Florida for the winter and when we returned I decided to sell the house and move into something smaller. I couldn’t look after the pool – my husband had been the one to clean and vacuum it because we always had a crowd of people over. Our home was home base to everybody.
But I couldn’t look after the pool and it was so frustrating – it was becoming a problem to me. People were starting to stay away (from the pool area) and it was starting to be frustrating for me. It became a pressure on me and I think “You get rid of pressures and you get rid of problems” so this is what I’ll do. I said to my girls, “What would you say if we sold the home?” And they said, “Well Mom, if that’s what you want to do let’s go look at the condo across the road.” We went there and I saw one that was still being built and the outlay was terrific for me who was trying to downsize. I said “This is what I’m looking for!”
I put my house up on sale and bought it right there and then. The day I moved into the condo, my house sold so everything fell into place.
RT: What was it like for you to sell “your home base”?
May: It wasn’t very nice! And yet I knew it was the right thing to do because when things become a burden, when you have a problem and it starts to wear on you, get rid of the problem. That’s exactly why I sold the house. I never looked back. I had a whole house full of furniture and I said to my family, “This is what I’m taking and now you take whatever else is here that you want.”
I was really happy in that condo but the kids seemed to think I wasn’t. My eldest daughter and her husband were alone in their home and she said, “Why don’t you think about coming and living with us?” Well I never thought that I’d ever be living with any of my family. So I gave it some thought and with the pressure my daughters put on me, I ended up living with them and never looked back.
RT: How long have you been living with them?
May: I’ve lived here since 1991 so 20 years.
RT: And you’ve never looked back…?
May: I’ve never looked back and I get along with everybody. I had moments when I wished I had my own little space. My daughter’s home is the family’s home base so I see a lot of my family and when there’s a function going on, it’s a beehive. Our family are a close unit and I love my grandkids dearly.
RT: What does your age mean to you?
May: Every birthday I celebrate it and I think, “Oh I’m another year older” but I don’t feel any different -other than I’ve slowed down like I’m not able to run a race anymore. I had a very serious back surgery a few years ago that slowed me down a bit but I’ve continued to live with the back problems. I’ve not had anything really to worry about.
RT: And you don’t use any walking aids…
May: Nobody would know that my legs give me problems. With age, your parts start going but thank goodness any problems I have are not visible! My legs bother me but I don’t let them stop me.
RT: How do you manage the pain or discomfort?
May: Well I do take some pain medications but I’m sort of anti-drugs. I don’t like to take it if I don’t need it.
I have an attitude that it’s up to me to look after my health and to keep myself in good shape. I was very athletic in my younger years and my husband and I played every sport going. We curled for years.
I also keep busy – I play cards with a whole group of friends. We play Mondays, Tuesday nights, Wednesday afternoons and Thursday nights and I keep the weekends for family and friends. I go and do my grand-daughter’s laundry every week to help her out…she is so busy with her kids and work that she doesn’t have time and I know what that’s like! There’s only so many hours in the day and also that gives me something to do and it makes it worthwhile for me just to go down to her place and give her a helping hand.
RT: What did you learn from your parents or your elders about aging or growing older?
May: Well, we learned that you take every day at a time. My mother was 94 when she passed away, mind you she was in a nursing home for a few years. My father was 86 when he passed away and wasn’t in the best of health. Life was about getting on with it and doing your best.
I remember an incident when I was a little girl, maybe 8 or 9 years old, and learning to ride the bicycle. I wanted so much to learn to ride. I was riding the bicycle on the paved part of the road and I saw all this money all the way down the road. So I put my foot down (I didn’t know how to stop yet!), went back, gathered all this money and I ran home. My father was the type that every payday he would go and pay the bills off, then go buy his beer. We sort of hated payday at our house. It was the only time my father drank – on payday which was every two weeks.
So my father had gone and I’d rushed home with all this money and I said “Mom, look! I found all this money!”
And she said, “Well, where did you get it?”
So I told her, “It was on the road so I had to stop and pick it all up!”
She said, “Well we’ll just have to put it in an envelope and you take it up to the Reeve of the town. He’ll put a note on the post office door – a sum of money found.”
I looked at her and asked, “But don’t you want it?”
And she said, “But it’s not ours. It belongs to somebody else that’s lost it and it must go back there.”
So I left the bicycle there and walked up to the Reeve and gave him the envelope of money and told him where I found it.
It wasn’t long before a farmer whom we knew quite well claimed it. He’d been to the mill with a team of horses and he’d shoved the money into his pocket. Well of course he’d driven downhill and the money had fallen out of his pocket all over the road!
This was an experience I’ve never forgotten and I’ve never forgotten the words my mother said.
RT: What about it stayed with you? What impressed you?
May: To be truthful and to be honest. The farmer who had lost this money came to our home afterwards and gave me two dollars. Well, two dollars to me was a lot of money! It was around 1929 or 1930…that was a lot of money in those days! Especially being in such a large family with so many kids.
There were a lot of big families then. I’m the only one in our family who had many kids. I used to call myself a Fertile Myrtle!
RT: You enjoyed being a mom?
May: Yes, I had darling children. And I also love being a grandmother and great-grandmother! There’s payment galore there.
RT: Do you feel like that’s been your life purpose?
May: I think it probably has. It’s the part of life that I’ve enjoyed most.
RT: What about it have you enjoyed most or found meaningful?
May: Well today, I love having my family around all the time and not having to go to a nursing home at my age. My sister has been in a nursing home for about a year now and I watched my mother in a nursing home. I think to myself: Here I am, 90 years old, living a luxury life. And I’m so grateful. I go to church every Sunday. I enjoy every day. I get up every morning at 5am, turn on the TV, listen to the news and learn what’s happening. I’m a news freak – I need to know what’s going on all over the world. I have a lot to be grateful for in my life, and I am. And at 90 years old, here I am living a great life and taking good care of myself along with a doctor whom I like very much and a family who is so good to me.
I actually worked at finding a doctor whom I liked. I didn’t like my previous doctor and so I changed to a different one.
RT: What are you doing to take care of yourself and your health? What have you done over the years?
May: I get lots of rest, I eat properly, I eat lots of fruit and vegetables. I love to cook and now I cook when my daughter isn’t here so she doesn’t lose her role as chef in her kitchen which I understand! This is her home, this is her kitchen.
RT: So what does old mean to you?
May: Well I’m not quite sure what old means! Some people are old at 60, some at 50, some people are never old! And I myself don’t feel old. I can get up in the morning and I have my shower. When I go to nursing homes and see these people who don’t get a shower every day, not that I think they’re well-looked after but in a lot of places they aren’t. I know that when my sister had a stroke, I brought her home and tried to look after her but it was just too much for me. I ended up having to place her in an institution. So she aged at 58 when she had a stroke. 58!
RT: Sounds like your ideas about old have to do with health, frailty, …
May: There are so many different aspects to old age. There are different degrees of old age. Some people at 50 can be very old and then there are people like me at 90 who are very active. I think a lot of it has to do with your genes, the way you live, and your attitude towards other people and towards everyday life.
Every day is a different day. I never seem to do the same thing from one day to the next which would be boring and boredom for me! I enjoy variety.
There was a time when I used to skate and loved skating. I thought I’d never give up my skates but I did. There came a day when I couldn’t skate anymore and I didn’t dwell on it. It just finally faded away. Things you stop doing sort of fade away and other things come into its place. Like I have a jigsaw puzzle upstairs to do with a thousand pieces, it’s a real challenge and I like a challenge. And I also do word puzzle books galore…if I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll do some word puzzles. First thing in the morning, I always do 2, 3 maybe 4 pages of word puzzles. It’s like an addiction! And it’s educational! And you’re never too old to learn. Never too old!!
Life is full of tests and how you handle the tests has a lot to do with your well-being. Some people never get over things. I believe that if you believe, that if you’re a believer, and I am…I’m not a religious person but I like going to church and I do believe…that there’s a lot of guidance there.
RT: What kind of guidance has it offered you?
May: It’s offered me security in my own mind and keeps me going in the right direction. It gives me great satisfaction. When I come home from church I feel almost cleaned out…a peace of mind. Some people think they can get through this world without any help. You don’t see the help but everybody needs help. Everybody needs good friends. And a couple of bucks in your pocket helps.
RT: What are your thoughts on death or dying?
May: Often in the middle of the night I think of it, I often see myself laid out. I see my family lamenting but I know this is part of life and someday it will come. I never give it a thought that it could be today or tomorrow. I just carry on. And I think that everybody thinks about it, especially when you get older. These are things you do think and as you lose your older friends one by one, then you start to wonder when my day will be. Any day that I’m able to go to a funeral, I do and pay my respects.
RT: What have been the best things about getting older, of reaching ninety?
May: It’s been having my family and seeing my family become established, having them around me today.
RT: And what have been the harder things about getting older for you?
May: That you do have to give up some things. And it depends on how old you are, like I said, age is a whole variety of times. And nobody is the same.
RT: Do you think living with your family has helped you live longer?
May: Yes, I think it has. Maybe because my responsibilities are lessened. I don’t have the same responsibilities that I had earlier in life. I have no responsibilities other than cash my cheque and pay my way here, get up in the morning, have my breakfast and dinner at night, spend my days learning and doing what I like and go to bed.
RT: What do you know today that you didn’t know as a young adult or middle-aged adult? What do you appreciate now that you didn’t appreciate when you were younger?
May: The independence I have…I love my independence in old age. So many people don’t have their independence and it’s different as you get older. My experience of independence is different than when I was younger because I had so many responsibilities and now those are all gone. The only responsibility I have now is to look after myself and that’s easy.
RT: What do you know about life now that you didn’t know when you were younger?
May: I didn’t know that life is a challenge and life is what you make it. Life could be better for some people if they would deal with it differently. You don’t need to have a whole lot in life to make you happy. If you keep wanting things that are out of your reach and you keep wanting, wanting, you’re not going to be happy until you get it and maybe you’re never going to get it.
But if you have what you need in life to get by – good friends, great family, a roof over your head – what else do you need?
RT: If you were to share a piece about the experience of aging to help people who are younger than you, what would it be?
May: Make your everyday life the best you can. You’ll reach a point where your life will change a little, you must learn to change with it. As life goes on, age is just another year. You have to accept it. You can’t say I wish I was 30 again. How stupid to say you wish you were 30 again – it’s not going to happen! Be thankful, be thankful for small mercies. Be thankful for your life as it is and just look forward to the next day. There are certain things that are inevitable and you learn to accept them. And the better you accept things, the better off you’ll be.
