Years ago, in an article about photographer Sally Mann, the interviewer disparagingly asked Ms. Mann why all her photographs were of her kids. At the time, she was a mother of three young children living a very simple life in rural Virginia. She responded, "I’m working within my constraints."
Constraints, whether financial, time-, health- or otherwise, are part of every life. Some people point to them as an excuse why they can't do something, while others are aware of them as they try to maximize what they can do. Once a month, in this series, I intend to feature a senior who might stretch the limits (and imagination) of other seniors as they settle into the physical constraints that often come with age.
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This month, I'm featuring Aimee Everett, a resident in Independent Living at Magnolia Glen, who I met while trying to find tools for a client losing his sight.
Aimee, 94 and legally blind, helps run the monthly Vision Impairment Support Group at Magnolia Glen and that week she had brought a gadget made by Optelec which lit and magnified newspaper print. I asked if I could come by her apartment and test it out. She agreed and when I arrived, she also showed me some other essential tools.
For example, she subscribes to the NC books-on-tape for the Blind and Physically Handicapped program. She also helped set up a books-on-tape catalog for Magnolia Glen that residents can borrow from.
She showed me a lamp with a magnifying glass that she uses when she needs to write checks.
She showed me how she had her closet organized in order to be able to easily find coordinating outfits.
I was impressed.
"How’d you get this resourceful?" I asked her.
She laughed, then said, "I had to."
I probed. She said, "I was a single mom of four kids."
"What'd you do?" I asked.
"I got a job modeling while the kids were in school," she said, adding, "Modeling was totally different then. You'd get hired to walk around a dining room in a nice restaurant, or even the Catholic Church, wearing certain clothes. Those are pictures of me," she said, pointing to the wall behind me.
"After my girls went to college and my son was a senior in high school, we moved to San Francisco and I started all over again. I got a good job at Joseph Magnim. I was put in charge of a department—furs, coats dresses, and a lot of sales people. Then one day, my boss was fired for drinking on the job. They brought in a team from New York so I lost my job, too."
"I went home. I pulled all the shades down and I just sat and thought, what am I going to do now? I’ll tell you what I can do is clean the apartment. I swept and mopped and even scrubbed the shower down with a toothbrush. Ok. That's done. Now what? 'I think I have to go get another job, I said to myself."
She was quiet for a second, then said, "If there is a problem, there is a solution!"
It's obvious she employees this approach to her life now, too. "I’m 94. In my seventies, I had both knees and shoulders replaced and was diagnosed with macular degeneration. I've had it for 22 years."
She said, "Come here. I want to show you something." She took me over to her large Apple monitor, which displayed text in its maximum size. She had an additional magnifying glass on her desk which she now used to search the monitor for the internet browser.
She pulled up her email account and clicked on a link. We watched a short segment which featured her teaching a water aerobics class last week.
Aimee does chair yoga, "move to music" class and fitter sitters. She was on the Magnolia Glen Board for two years. She helps run the Vision Impairment Support group and has a busy social schedule.
"Sometimes I think it would be really nice to sit in my chair all day, to just give up. Then the whole time I'm thinking that, I'm also getting my bathing suit on and walking down to the pool and when I get there, I think, 'Oh, wow, I'm here. I might as well get in.'"
"I’m in my last segment of life," Aimee said, "I'm trying to make it my best."
Do you know another inspiring senior we should feature here? Email me LiisaOgburn@AgingAdvisorsNC.com