Musings at Altitude

I stand amazed at the people I meet and the things that motivate them.  I also just keep smiling at the stories they tell and the mentoring they do.  I find mentors in so many places now, giving me that much needed perspective on what is important in life and also through their stories and parables giving me those words of wisdom that help me keep my own life and trials and frustrations in perspective.

Tonight was no different.  The bar of the hotel was unusually quiet…very abnormal for this time of the summer in Anchorage…it’s always busy…typically too busy…and typically way to hectic to have any sense of a normal conversation with the bar manager…but thank goodness tonight was different…it was just me and her…she from the midwest and me from the deep south.

She’s up in her years, moving to Anchorage to be near her daughter, and working two jobs for many of the last 10 years but now only working one as she gets closer to retirement.  Her only bills are her rent and her car payment, and she keeps a nice car because as she says, “she deserves it”.  She was the youngest of 10 kids, adopted into a family of long livers.  Once a year she heads back down to the lower 48 to visit her family, spread out across the midwest.  Her oldest living sibling is a brother at 92, still driving and still mowing his lawn.  He was forced to retire because according to his doctors his heart couldn’t take it and yet he just keeps on ticking.  She’s also got sisters at 86, 83, and 82, all of which get together as often as possible and visit the casinos together.  Her youngest living yet older sister is 78, and she’s had multiple heart surgeries.  She finally went to the Mayo Clinic though, and lo and behold, she’s now kicking too and looking forward to a couple more decades of life.  The 78 year old has 12 kids of her own…staggering as I think about it.

As for our bartender, she just got a pacemaker, and sure enough she’s kicking perfectly again.  She keeps us all straight, and she’s been here for a decade now, so she knows all the regulars! 

This one fascinating lady gave me perspective tonight, talking about her brothers and sisters and their cumulative 460+ years of living.  And she kept talking and I kept listening as guests began to show up.  She nimbly went from asking, “where did you go fishing” to talking about bear sightings to talking about weather, and then she’d stop back by and talk some more about her family.  And the whole time she was mentoring and educating me, and she probably didn’t even know it.

She’ll be heading south soon for another two week break in the lower 48 and she’ll be able to meet her great grand niece who is now 4 pounds 8 ounces and still in the hospital.  She’ll be coming home soon and I can’t imagine what it will be like to have that little bitty baby meet her great great uncle at 92 and great great aunt at 86 and this fascinating lady who is tending bar in Anchorage and waiting anxiously for that time she can hold that new life in her hands and welcome her appropriately into this very loving and yet very extended family.

When that child is 8, that great great uncle will be 100…certainly still mowing his lawn, and full of the mentoring that can only come from someone who has lived a century and through the collective experiences of a loving family has experienced life in its fullest!