Secrets to a long and rich life, from a woman who has lived one
Shirley Carey talks candidly about grief, affectionately about friends and unflinchingly about death
"My hair is so straight it's sinful."
Shirley Carey sits on a kitchen chair with a hairdressing cape wrapped around her small frame. Her white and grey hair is getting wrapped around rollers.
"I don't have one, not one kink anywhere but, and if, I could have had waves or curl and red hair, I'd love to have had red hair. Maybe in my next life."
It's not unusual for Carey to have her hair done in the kitchen of her home in Avonport, N.S. But this hair appointment is for a very special reason. It's the night before her 100th birthday on Aug. 8.
"Mentally, except I'm getting to be a bit forgetful, I'm OK," she said.
"Physically, my body has decided to fall apart. I guess. Oh, I'm fortunate to be as well as I am. But I have been well all my life. I guess it's because I was born when we had good, pure food from the soil to eat. Things have changed greatly there, however, I'm very fortunate to be as well as I am."
In a region with the country's oldest — and rapidly aging — population, what can we learn from Shirley Carey? It turns out, quite a lot.
"I still have sad times from losing my sons, but then I think of how fortunate I was to have had them," she says. Two of her sons, Bill Carey and Orren Carey, died from pancreatic cancer: Bill in 2003 and Orren in 2013.
"I try to think of the wonderful parts of those lives that I've known that otherwise I wouldn't. And that helps a great deal if you can."
Carey talks candidly about grief, affectionately about true friends and unflinchingly about her own death.
"I've had a wonderful life and a good family. And I've done all I needed to do," she said. "I think life is the heaven or the hell, is the what we make it here ourselves."
Rug hooking
She has built a community of family and friends and is not one to shy away from a challenge.
After her husband, Earl, passed away more than 40 years ago, Shirley took up rug hooking. She only stopped two years ago after a fall.
"I tripped and plummeted forward on my hands and the doctor says I have damaged the nerves in my shoulders, which in turn have damaged the ones in my hands."
Still, she looks back on hooking with fondness and credits the hobby and community it gave her for her long, rich life.
"In the winter, I just love to have my supper early and sit down and hook all evening. So it has been a wonderful companion."
Leading up to her 100th birthday party, set to take place in a room usually reserved for weddings, Carey just hoped she would still be alive on the big day.
"But if I'm not, as I told the girls, we are just using anything that has been set up that can't be done away with or changed as a celebration of life and carry on," she said.
"Don't ruin a good party."
She did make it to her party, and her younger brother Perry was confident she'll hit another milestone by living to 105.
"I have no doubt with her health and her memory, she'll certainly make it."
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