Anyone who knows me well, \u00a0knows that the week of our book club meeting I lay pretty low.\u00a0 I am doing something I should have done all month, and that is read the book.\u00a0 This month the book was Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen, which is about her life and thoughts about growing older.\u00a0 Our facilitator asked us to share our\u00a0thoughts, so this is what I’ve been doing, and this will be my contribution today.<\/p>\n
The exercise to share made me really think about my life..backwards and forwards.\u00a0 I decided to pin point one thing\u00a0 that shaped my life..what made me who I am..effected my happiness, my attitudes and my ability to face and overcome difficult situations.\u00a0 It had to be the mentors I was so fortunate to have.\u00a0 I attribute my happiness now to several mentors, that seemed to have entered my life at the right time. One of my favorites was Daisy, who is having a profound influence on my life now. I met Daisy 8 years ago.\u00a0 She was 92 and her daughter was bringing her to The Villages to live with her, as she felt she should not be alone in New Jersey.\u00a0 She had tried for several years to convince her to come to Florida, but only after a very icy winter did\u00a0Daisy give up her home, and and her drivers license, and\u00a0finally succumbed to the inevitable.\u00a0\u00a0 She agreed to come,\u00a0 although\u00a0she did so\u00a0kicking and screaming all the way down Rt.#95.\u00a0 I should give you a little background on Daisy.\u00a0 She\u00a0was of Dutch descent.\u00a0 She was raised, and also raised her family in the Dutch Reform religion.\u00a0 She lived her whole live in Prospect Park, \u00a0New Jersey, which was a town that was founded on\u00a0the religion, which meant\u00a0no cars on Sunday in the town, and hanging clothes out on Sunday was a no, no.\u00a0 Just a few things I knew about the town as one who grew up nearby.\u00a0 I guess the first hint that Daisy was ahead of her times was when her only daughter married a Catholic.\u00a0 When my friend said her 92 year old mother was going to join our Thursday night dinners, which is a group of 16 that go out every Thursday night, I was a little skeptical to say the least, that is until I met Daisy. She was one of the most interesting persons I have ever met.\u00a0 She, at the age of 92, still read the New York Times, front to back every day. She was more contemporary than I was, she was an avid reader and her opinions always seemed to be right on.\u00a0 I formed a great bond with her, and\u00a0as our Birthdays were a day a part,\u00a0 we always had a Birthday Bash..Daisy and I.\u00a0 I always told her when I grow up I want to be just like you.\u00a0\u00a0 She was my new best idol. I especially loved her stories about her early years.\u00a0 She told me once when she was about 10 years old, she was visiting a friends’ house and they had store bought bread that was sliced.\u00a0 She thought this was the greatest thing, \u00a0however when she ran home raving about the bread that was sliced, \u00a0her mother said\u2026\u201dHow lazy does some one get.\u201d\u00a0 She had many stories of growing up in the early 1900’s. Oh\u2026Daisy loved to have a Manhattan with her dinner, and I can\u2019t tell you how many times we would say to a waitress..yes she said a Manhattan.\u00a0 She would take a sip, wink to indicate her approval, hold her head high and drink it with dignity.\u00a0 If there ever was a grande dame, \u00a0it was Daisy. Oh, she loved to play Poker too, and she did every Sunday.\u00a0 As she would go out the door, she would always say, if anyone calls I\u2019m at Bible Study. When Daisy died at 97, after just a few days in the hospital, \u00a0she left all who knew her, a wonderful legacy.\u00a0 She was our living proof that we \u00a0could grow old and still have fun, and maybe do things\u00a0we never imagined doing, just as Daisy did…drink Manhattans and play poker. How many people in Prospect Park NJ did that?\u00a0 The biggest gift\u00a0Daisy gave us was\u00a0she\u00a0took the fear out of growing old.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0She was a wonderful mentor\u00a0to all who knew her, \u00a0I miss her dearly and she holds a very special place in my heart, as do all my mentors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who knows me well, \u00a0knows that the week of our book club meeting I lay pretty low.\u00a0 I am doing something I should have done all month, and that is read the book.\u00a0 This month the book was Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen, which is about her life and thoughts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1000,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions\/1000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestvillageblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}