Theresa is 93 years old and grew up in Scarborough, Ontario. She and her family grew up poor, in a small house with no electricity or water. At 16, she got a job making chain findings for jewelry so she could save up to buy her mom a piano. When Theresa got married, she had two sons and two daughters and made her way to the West Coast. Theresa is in good health, but is aware that she will soon be approaching the end of her life. She was light hearted throughout our conversation, offering me wine and complimenting my jewelry, at one point even breaking into song with me. But she also wasn’t afraid to share some tears when speaking about lost loved ones. When I asked her how she deals with such things, she told me, “discipline your way of thinking, don’t dwell on the sad things…worry doesn’t fix anything…if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, accept it, and that’s how you have to think. That’s my belief.”
Theresa and I bonded over our curiosity around the universe and life and death. When I asked about her views, she said, “We came from atoms, which are just small particles of dust that the whole universe exists of, and so, it’s just a cycle, we’re just cycles, we’re just little cycles of that now, all our parts, everything, and when that cycle wears out, you die…we’re just back where we came from. It’s all there, all the time going around us everywhere. That’s my belief.”
When asked specifically about death, she said -”You shouldn’t be afraid of it, you should be able to accept it, when it happens it happens. Nobody knows when it’s your time to go…”
When asked about advice on living life, she said, “Embrace it! To the hilt!…without hurting anyone else or hurting yourself of course…everything in moderation…eat little and often”
When asked about advice on growing old: “Grow old gracefully. And go with your heart and your soul what you feel what you want to do- within reason, you can’t just be a crazy old woman.”
