5 lessons on aging well – June Shaw, LIVING WELL Magazine

5 Lessons on Aging Well

By June Shaw, New Orleans LIVING WELL Magazine

My two brothers and I were extremely fortunate because our mom, Nora Shaw, lived until she was 102 ½. She really LIVED till that age.

Of the many lessons everyone who knew or met her learned, here are five that can help anyone age better.

  1. Don’t take yourself too seriously. She picked me up to join her to shop for a mattress, found one, and was ready to pay for it when the salesman asked if she wanted to purchase a 10-year warranty. “Why would I want an extended warranty?” she asked with a laugh. “I’m 88.” He couldn’t believe her age; no one ever could. Mom accepted her mortality but kept living her life as though it could go on forever. “Guess what I did today,” she asked not long afterward when I answered the phone. “I bought a new car and a casket.” I was relieved to learn she didn’t plan to start driving faster.
  2. Increase your circle of friends. People she’d known passed on, yet Mom kept lots of friends. She got out of her house almost every day, went different places, and spoke to people. She joined clubs, took bus trips, played Bingo during her later years, went dancing with many much-younger folks, and kept meeting new people of all ages.
  3. Get up and move. Mom was proud that she’d lost weight during her early 70s and kept it off. She cooked healthier meals and exercised, walking and exercising and dancing whenever she could. She agreed to move in with me during her late 90s once macular degeneration took most of her vision. I was keeping grandchildren and heard the 3-year-old speaking to Mom, who’d turned off her light and gone to bed. “Get up, Maw Maw,” the little one said. “Huh, why?” Mom groggily asked. “`Cause you’re it. You need to come march with us in the hall.” I was ready to ask the child to let Mom sleep, but my mother told her, “Oh, okay.” Mom got out of bed and marched behind her three great-grandchildren in my hall.
  4. Use what you know & never stop growing. Mom was terrific at grammar and spelling. A local radio station sponsored a daily scrambled word contest. My mother became well-known to large numbers of listeners because for years she was the first caller with the correct word. She won many prizes but mainly enjoyed using her knowledge. She also liked to learn new dances and correct people’s spelling and grammar, the latter trait causing me much anguish—until later in life when I started writing books.
  5. As long as you’re alive, keep living. The phone rang. Someone from “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” asked about Mom and me going on the program because they read that she was 102 and coming to line-dance classes with me. Need I say more?

You can learn more—like starting to date during your senior years and having your mother wait up for you—from my book “NORA 102 ½: A Lesson on Aging Well”––available now at Amazon.com, Amazon Kindle, Createspace, and Smashwords.