一个84岁老太太的感人故事（英文ZT）

Meet Pat, a lighthearted 84 year-old woman who has lived an ordinary life, with extraordinary courage.

Her trademark humor, optimism, gratitude, and resourcefulness betray a lifetime of sacrifices and tough choices. Pat's inspiring story is about doing whatever it takes to live a “rich” life, even in tough times.

After a privileged upbringing, Pat chose love over money, and raised a family of nine on a middle American income. She was a masterful home economist, and very good at stretching scarce dollars. Homemade meals and clothes were the norm.

Their one splurge was spending summers on Prince Edward Isle, where they'd play on the beach and crowd together in an inherited rustic cottage with neither running water nor electricity. How Pat cherished the family togetherness at the cottage, especially after the tragic loss of her 16-year old daughter Vicky to a drunk driver.

When she lost the love of her life and the family's sole provider, Vic, after a long illness, 50-year old Pat put aside her grief and got a job at a local hospital, where she earned a decent paycheck and the respect of the medical staff despite her lack of formal education. Her hard work and unfaltering commitment were rewarded by a two-decade long career that was both personally fulfilling and monetarily lifesaving.

Pat's medical colleagues became a life support system, especially while she took leave of her job to care for her adult son, Michael who battled aggressive brain cancer. After Michael's passing, Pat made a final trek to Prince Edward Isle to say goodbye to the family cottage and to her son. She laughs and cries when retelling the story of how she accidentally toppled into the lake while shaking Michael's ashes out of the urn.

Despite the heartache, selling the cottage provided much needed financial relief. A modest IRA and pension, plus Social Security paid the bills, but wasn't enough to cover big expenses like new tires for the car. Pat took in a roommate, a nice young lady attending a local university. The extra rent money helped for a while. But the house was in need of repairs that Pat couldn't afford. When it got to be too much, Pat sold the family home. She banked the proceeds for living expenses, packed up a fraction of her belongings, sold the rest, and moved to a tiny apartment. It was the first time that she did not own her home.

Pat felt safe having a financial cushion from the home sale, but still worried about outliving her money. Longevity is in her genes. Her worst fear of all was, and is, being financially dependent on her kids. At age 78, Pat networked and found a job, seeing it as her last chance to preserve what was left of her nest egg, and enjoy a few road trips to visit family that she missed dearly.

With early signs of dementia taking a toll on her health, Pat finally and officially retired at age 83 a few months ago. Now, she happily volunteers at the resale shop in her apartment building, where she mingles with her neighbors. The store profits are donated to the "benevolent fund" which will allow her to stay in her home if she can't afford the rent someday. Pat calls herself a “lab rat” since enrolling in a research program on memory impairment, for which she is paid to undergo medical observation, treatments, and care.

Pat has run out of things to sell, but she has not run out of her precious stock of humor, optimism, gratitude, resourcefulness, and the courage to make tough choices — the true secrets of a rich life.

DISCLOSURE: This is a true story. Names have been changed to protect the privacy of this role model.