We’re all looking for the secret to a longer life. From cryotherapy treatments to endless botox injections, we’ll try anything to delay the inevitable, or at least look good while doing it. Longevity is a luxury industry now, with celebrities biohacking their bodies and influencers promising that their supplement will add ten years to your life. But what if the real secret to a long life is far simpler?
My friend, Teresa “Terry” Blatz Walker, a 98-year-old Minnesota native has seen nearly a century of change. Now living on the East Coast with her daughter and son-in-law, she’s outlived all seven of her siblings. Born in 1926, Terry – the youngest of eight – was raised on a farm during the Great Depression.
Like many others during that era, her family couldn’t afford school, and her devout Catholic parents didn’t trust the local public schools. So while her siblings became priests and nuns to gain an education, Terry earned full scholarships to both high school and college, graduating as the valedictorian of each.
Terry is a mom to three, and has lived long enough to meet six of her great-grandchildren. In other words, she’s no stranger to grit, gratitude, or grace.
I asked Terry what she thinks about our current obsession with aging. She answered frankly. She’s never had much time for trends. “Nobody seems to eat breakfast anymore,” she said. But more than the meal itself, Terry believes in the atmosphere around it.
“I think eating meals in a lovely situation is the most important thing,” she said. “Happiness contributes to health more than anything.”
© Getty ImagesTerry grew up eating everything organic long before it was a buzzword at the grocery store. She and her siblings ate what the farm grew. And her approach to health was never prescriptive, it was intuitive. Terry’s survived cancer three times. She’s lived through wars, recessions, and pandemics.
Her secret? “Good luck, God’s grace. Call it what you will, I seem to be a survivor.”
Terry is humble. She doesn’t claim to have it all figured out. She’s not here to tell younger generations what they’re doing wrong. If anything, she says we probably don’t think about aging enough. And maybe that’s okay.
© Getty Images“Finding the joy in life, connecting with the happy things,” she said. “There are no real answers or guarantees.”
Terry’s love of life is obvious to anyone who speaks with her. When asked what decade of her life she enjoyed the most, she said: “Each era has different goodness and joys, because I was a different person in each one.”
She reminisced on playing checkers with her siblings, the joy of raising young children, and the deep friendships that impacted her seventies.
© iStock“How lucky we are if the decades are happy ones,” Terry added.
If she could offer just one piece of advice for living a long, fulfilling life, it would be this: “Laugh more.” She thinks we take too much of life too seriously. Maybe lightening up is the real trick to longevity.
© Gilbert Flores/Golden Globes 202“Why some live long and why some don’t is a mystery,” she said. “Perhaps we should embrace the mystery of it above all.”
In a culture obsessed with control, Terry reminds us of something radical. We might not have the power to live forever, but we can choose to live well. With breakfast. With laughter. And if we’re lucky, with decades full of joy.
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