The video on the blog shows Linda on her first day after retirement. Watch the sheer beauty of the film and try to understand as much as possible. You can find the transcript below and many more video and audio testimonials on
Well I think that happy is a momentary thing. Happiness comes and goes. I think contentment is there all the time even underneath when you’re having a problem. I mean to be content, you have to work with what you’ve got.
I guess there is something in me that I’ve always been strong. I’ve always gotten through some pretty rough stuff without falling to pieces. It’s my nature to survive, it’s my nature to land on my feet.
It’s kind of hard to make decisions by yourself all of a sudden when you’ve been making them with somebody else for 35 years.
I had a wonderful, wonderful happy marriage and I was well loved and so many people don’t have that. So they gave him three to six months but we all knew better. He sort of sit enough and he reached out and touched my face and died in my arms.
The good thing about change is that you grow each time, you expand each time I think. My executive director and I started talking about it in the spring that I might take early retirement and I just got antsy, I just said, you know I need to go and do this if I’m going to do it, I need to do it.
Good morning, buddy, what’s up there? Ok, Ok, I’m getting up, I’m doing it.
He don’t talk back, he just looks like he understands.
Tom didn’t leave very much but he left me a little money. I bought Dicken with the last of the money that he left me. Just the companionship is, made a huge difference. I think when you hug somebody you just feel that sense of being loved and being held. I think that’s contentment. I think if you can carry that with you which pretty much do just feel like I’m walking around in one big hug.
Day one. First day of my retirement. First day I never had to answer anybody for anything, except Dicken. Gotta give him his treats or he’d be unhappy.
