Meet my new friend, Nadine.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending the day with the mother of the new boyfriend. He's really a very, very good person and an equally good boyfriend. He's kind and thoughtful and attentive and affectionate and likes to plan fun things and makes it clear to me how he feels about me and that he appreciates what we have together. And this is his mother.

Nadine will be 94 years old this month. You'd never guess her age, just never. She looks young and has a smile that warms a room. When I first met her, I asked her what she attributes her longitivity to, and she admitted that part of it is her upbeat attitude, that she always looks for the best in people and life. Just like me, and maybe most of us, she has to push herself to do what's good for her, like eating healthy food and exercising every day and admits that ice cream is her weakness. She walks, either on her treadmill or about her town, and when I dropped her off after five hours of walking around a quilt show and having lunch, she said she was going to rest a minute or so and then take her daily walk. She goes to the local Senior Center, plays cards weekly with friends, loves to play the penny machines at the casinos, and participates in a book club with a dozen other women. She says that she tends to worry and will usually pick up a good book to read when that happens. She was a college graduate when it wasn't common to see a woman in college and had a career as an educator.

But most of all she is delightful company. She is smart and wise and shares herself freely with me. She's perceptive and sees right through me and surprises me with suggestions on how to surmount what she thinks are my difficulties, even when I haven't really told her the whole story. And she makes me laugh, she just will crack me up without warning. She says that her family gets together at Christmas and she is the one that plans the fun part of the festivities. She comes up with a theme and everyone has to act out some idea of hers and no complaining is allowed. Apparently, last year the boyfriend and another grown male relative picked the card that said they were to dress up in ladies clothes and dance. Oh, I wish I could see pictures of that. Can you imagine how much laughter was in that room, all the creation of this lovely lady?

She shared old newspaper clippings with me that told of her parents, her father a "successful minister and business man" who, with Nadine's mother, opened a small grocery in their backyard in 1911, a single room 12x18 feet, stocked with $37 of merchandise, which grew to seven groceries and many accolades by their community. Called a "living legend," Nadine's mother shared her husband's pastoral duties, managed her growing family, was a "kind and interested friend of her customers and was the "confidant of those in all walks of life," and was "never too busy to have an attentive ear for the troubles of others." Known as a staunch supporter of causes "she deemed right," apparently few politicians "ran for office without seeking her counsel." She shunned publicity and was "content to remain in the background when she performed many deeds of community and personal service." Nadine's parents were both college-educated, as were all of their children, most with advanced degrees.

Life is what we ourselves make it, I'm reminded again and again. We have this one chance to be happy, to have a positive effect on those around us, to leave our imprint in our community. What didn't I tell you about the lovely and wise and fun and caring Nadine? It's that her parents, the successful minister and the well-respected grocery store owner and community legend were children of slaves. It's my privilege to consider her a friend.