Thank you for telling me the story of your neighbor. People like that are to be treasured. There’s something to be said for an irrepressible spirit! I have a friend who’s 91 (who happens to be an actor, but that’s incidental) who has one of those spirits. I often tell my partner how much I enjoy getting phone calls from this friend because of the celebration I’ll always hear in his voice. Every day for him is not just a good day but an extraordinary day. And that’s despite his having all the aches and pains you’d expect a 91-year-old person to have. I welcome his calls, unlike calls I get from others of my friends – friends who are much, much younger – whose voices are all mope, mope, mope, complain, complain, complain. Someone asked me the other day what I like in a book, expecting I’d say a good plot or a poignant ending. I said a spirit of triumph. That’s what my 91-year-old fiend has in abundance!

Cheers!
Ray (@ray666)