Forever young

One of my favorite memories of Christmas 2013 is being in Minnesota watching my partner Lincoln’s mother, Beverly Gill, walk laps around the circle driveway adjacent to her house for about half an hour in her bright red snow pants and matching red knit cap on her head. She walks smoothly and briskly like a 30-year-old. Did I mention that it was only 3 degrees that afternoon and that she had just turned 90?

Bev is a perfect example of how a positive outlook keeps you young and healthy.

“I’m just happy all the time,” she says during breakfast one morning.

I learned that about Bev shortly after I first met her three years ago. As we were looking out her kitchen windows at her expansive view of Rochester, Minn., the city she and her husband, Bob, have called home for most of their lives, she suddenly, enthusiastically grabbed my forearm and exclaimed, “Life’s great, isn’t it?”

Well, when you put it that way.

The only time I’ve seen Bev even remotely unhappy is after the Minnesota Gophers football team lost the college bowl game they played a couple days after Christmas. Within moments, she was over it.

Bev’s secret — that she is happy to share — is that she is grateful for everyone and everything in her life. She also finds the positive in every situation. When I remark that the temperature outside was going to dip down to -15 degrees, she says, “That’s not so bad!”

One evening she tells me, “I don’t like to go to bed angry. Who needs that?”

Bev’s secret has worked wonders in her and Bob’s life together. The couple has made few, if any, concessions to their age. They live in their own beautiful home, they still drive themselves to visit friends and family and enjoy evenings together or sharing a beer with a bowl of homemade hot buttered popcorn.

While in Minnesota, I read a study that says your positive attitude controls as much as 40 percent of your body’s health. Some health practitioners would say that number is closer to 90 percent.

But which comes first? A happy life or a healthy body? Does it matter? If a happy outlook on life creates health benefits, how about starting now?

Here on Kauai, we are surrounded by more things to be grateful for than anywhere else on the planet. Our sunny skies and warm average temperature of 77 degrees; gorgeous places to hike, bike, walk, surf and swim; fresh fruit and vegetables at our fingertips year-round; spectacular brightly-colored flowers everywhere the freshest air possible and the friendliest people anywhere.

If Lincoln’s mom can be cheerful when it’s -13 degrees outside (trust me, she is), we can all be thrilled every day here on our Garden Island.

Let’s share more of our Kauai joy with friends, family, co-workers, clients – everyone we come in contact with. Try enthusiastically grabbing someone near you and saying, “Lucky we live Kauai!”

•••

Back in Minnesota on Dec. 30, it’s about -5 degrees on Bev’s 90th birthday and snowing outside. “I love a snowy day,” she says. “Don’t you?” I figured she says that about every kind of day, but she corrects me. “I don’t like windy,” she says. “You know what I mean?”

As the day progresses, all her grandchildren telephone from Arizona, Colorado, Chicago, Hawaii (where one couple is honeymooning), Virginia and Minnesota to wish her Happy Birthday. “I feel so lucky!” she says to every one of them.

“I feel about 50-something,” she says to grandson, Alex, who is calling from Tucson. Her husband, Bob, a whippersnapper himself at 92, turns to Lincoln and says, “She moves pretty good for her age.”

At 10 that night, Bev is still going strong, reading a magazine while Bob sits nearby looking up information on the Internet about his World War II Navy squadron. I say, “Good night, birthday girl.” She replies with a wink, “We won’t celebrate too hard.”

• Pamela Varma Brown is the publisher “Kauai Stories,” a collection of 50 humorous, touching and inspiring stories in the words of Kauai’s people, available on Amazon and locations islandwide, and the forthcoming “Kauai Stories 2.”