90-Year Old Explains How to Overcome Life’s Challenges
My great aunt Reena has taught me many valuable lessons in life – including the importance of vulnerability, perseverance, and authenticity. She’s been a guiding light during some of the toughest moments of my life. In this episode, we dove into a discussion of overcoming life's challenges and reminding us all of the strength we have within ourselves to persevere through any obstacles. I hope you enjoy her story.
The importance of following your intuition during the early stages of your career
As someone who is still figuring out a career path… I was curious to learn about Reena’s own journey. As a nurse, she worked very hard her entire life, and I admired her for her contribution to society. “I built my nursing career in steps” she tells me. “You have to work your way up to a higher level, you can’t just start from the top.”
Throughout Reena’s career, she explored various positions within the nursing field. In the beginning, she started as a private medical nurse and then soon transitioned to surgical nursing. However, she mentioned whenever she felt stuck that she’d always use her intuition. “Whenever a job wasn’t appealing to me anymore, I would move on. I always followed my instincts.” she says.
Her next job was as a VON nurse (Victorian Order of Nurses) for Peel County, following a job in public health for a period of time before becoming a psychiatric nurse. Now this one shocked me. Working in a psych ward couldn’t have been easy… but somehow she told me it was one of the few jobs she loved. “Everybody would work from 9:00am-4:30pm, but I chose to stay later for the patients who couldn’t see me during the day.”
Lastly, and her most fulfilling role to date, was when she became a professor at Humber College to teach Nursing and Ethics. “I would always fight for the disadvantaged” she said, “I think that’s why I did so well in my jobs.”
Getting through hard times
Photo of Irene, who graduated with her masters in psychiatric nursing.
Reena had a difficult childhood, but there was also a time in later adulthood, when it seemed like everything was falling apart.
Her husband had to be checked into a psych ward for mental health issues, while she also cared for her sick mother with cancer.
“In the mornings before work and my days off, I went out to my mother’s home to give her morphine for the pain. I also went to work everyday and taught…while working on my masters. On top of that, my husband was in a psych ward [for bipolar]” she says, while taking a pause. “I survived. Even if you feel terrible, do not give up. Something is a lot brighter around the corner but you just can’t see it yet.”
Her biggest role model
The person who always inspired Reena to keep going was her aunt, Marnie. “My father was a chauffeur for this very rich man, so we were able to stay in one of his old hotels. Because of this job, he was able to get my aunt over from England (born in Norway) to Canada just two weeks before the Battle of Britain. I remember her documents of immigration saying ‘alien from Norway’, she says, while shaking her head.
Based on the stories I’ve heard about Marnie, she must have been one of the strongest women I’ve ever heard of. In her twenties, she once cycled 500km through the mountains to Oslo, Norway from Trondheim. And at night – she would sleep in the ditch! “She soon became one of my very good friends” Reena says, smiling. “She was a good role model for me.”
Photo of Marnie, who probably loved animals more than humans!
How she learned to become vulnerable
If there’s anything you must learn about Reena, it’s that she taught everyone in my family the true meaning behind – how are you?
When the question was asked, she meant it. I learned that the best thing to do is be upfront right in the beginning. You see, she has this gift of peeling back the layers of vulnerability before even you’re ready for it, so the more you avoid it…the more intimate the questions will become.
Another gift of hers, involved knowing when someone was out of sorts. It was like her intuition always knew before anyone else. Reena would always tell me this too shall pass – emphasizing that sadness is temporary and before you know it, things will get better soon.
I was curious where her vulnerability came from, as I found most people in her generation to be more emotionally closed-off. “Well, it wasn’t from Marnie.” she tells me. “My mother and aunt were strong workers but they didn’t know how to communicate.”
Now I was confused for a second. Reena was one of the most raw, authentic and vulnerable people I’ve ever met. If she didn’t have anyone in her family to influence her…who did?
“I was actually very closed off.” she says. “But I had two best friends, and they were the closest to being honest with me. I learned from them.”
Finding the balance between hardness & softeness
Throughout her life, she had to unlearn many beliefs that made her feel worthless. With time, she started learning how to let go of relationships that no longer served her. “I was told that I was nothing more than a piece of sh*t on a string. I said, I’m more than that.” she tells me, bright with determination.
Because of her upbringing, she had a lot of anger that could have destroyed her but rather, she transformed it into the serving of others and…her music.
“You know why I was so good at the piano?” she asked me. “Because all my rage went into Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. I had to play for guests and I would pound it out – for every note, I was able to express rage and softness. I was able to find that balance.”
Reena taught me so many lessons about life. As a way to summarize some of my favourites, I put it into this instagram post, I uploaded a while ago.
I hope this article reminded you of the strength within yourself to keep going. Take a moment to think about the amount of ancestors that existed for you to be here today. Thousands of them! If they could get past their struggles, so can you.
