A Life of Stories : Life is to Adjust
We all carry, in our memories, thousands of moments from our lives and hundreds of stories we can tell. When a hospice patient is mentally clear, has lived a long life, and can recall events from decades past, the hours spent together can be filled with entertaining stories and unexpected life lessons. It’s actually a rare combination of circumstances—but when it all comes together, the results can be magical.
Mary was one of those patients. For four months, once a week, for two hours at a time, I was regaled with stories from her 93 years of life and the lessons she learned along the way.
Every patient is unique. Each one brings a different mix of life experience, personality, and disease limitations that shape how conversations unfold and how much is shared. Often, patients aren’t mentally clear—sometimes because of dementia, sometimes because illness has made it too hard to reach back into the past. Others are quiet, private, or simply too tired to talk for long. And sometimes there just isn’t enough time before they pass. Meeting a new patient is always exciting because, no matter what I hear from the family beforehand, I never really know what I’ll encounter until I sit down beside them and listen.
I remember my first visit with Mary vividly—probably because I got hopelessly lost on the way there and had to call her son for directions. They lived up in the hills, where the roads twisted and turned, the house numbers made no sense, and Google Maps sent me to the wrong address. When I finally arrived, ten minutes late, I was frustrated with myself for not leaving more time for the first visit. As I apologized, Mary’s son reassured me, saying everyone gets lost the first time. Still, it felt wrong to be late for someone whose remaining time on Earth was short.
My embarrassment melted away the moment I met Mary. She had a broad, welcoming smile and thrust out her hand to introduce herself. I apologized again, and she laughed. “Oh, lots of people have trouble finding this place,” she said. “Besides, all I have is time. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” She was referring, with good humor, to being housebound by limited mobility and fading energy.
“We’re all stories, in the end.”
Her easygoing, self-deprecating attitude immediately put me at ease. I settled into a chair facing hers—an arrangement we would keep for every visit. We sat in a bright family room just off the kitchen, with a sweeping 180-degree view of the Bay Area—from San Francisco all the way down to south San Jose.
To get things started, I said, “I really love your view and the feel of your house. Is it an Eichler?”
“Why, no—but how astute of you,” she replied. “This house was designed this way after my late husband, Jerry, and I lived in an Eichler in Berkeley.”
What followed was two hours of lively conversation about the homes we’d lived in and the architecture of the Bay Area. Mary shared vivid stories of her years in Berkeley and the process of building the home we were sitting in. The time flew by. I was astonished by the clarity of her memory—she recalled details I can only hope to remember when I’m in my nineties. Later, her son confirmed that everything she described was accurate.
Mary often spoke wistfully of her school days in San Francisco, reminiscing about classmates like George Moscone, who would later become famous. On one occasion, with a humble sort of pride, she showed me an old orange juice ad from her childhood—she’d been the eight-year-old model for the poster. Her stories of blind dates and eventually falling in love with Jerry were told with charm and humor. And when she spoke about the homes they’d shared, her words painted architectural portraits so detailed I could see each one in my mind. The features she’d loved over the years were reflected in the house she ultimately built with Jerry and lived in for more than fifty years.
“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
Whenever the subject turned to her children, Mary became even more animated. She glowed as she spoke about raising her son and daughter, both adopted, and the joy they brought her. Their struggles, triumphs, and unique personalities were her favorite topics. What made her happiest, she said, was how kind and loving they’d grown up to be. She called herself “lucky” that they turned out so well.
I was surprised by that—because it didn’t seem like luck to me. Mary exuded kindness and gratitude, and she’d spent her life giving back to her community. She raised her children with intention, modeling compassion and integrity. How could they not turn out good?
But that humility was central to who she was. Mary viewed life as a journey made up of many destinations along the way. The destinations were pleasant, but not the point. What mattered most, she believed, was the growth and learning that happened between them.
When she spoke about family and friends, she focused not on what people accomplished, but on who they were. “Life is to adjust,” she told me more than once—her way of saying we must make the most of whatever comes our way. I never heard Mary complain about hardship or bad luck. She described both joy and pain matter-of-factly, choosing instead to talk about how she responded to each situation.
I looked forward to my two hours with Mary every week. Our conversations were rich with detail, entertaining, and deeply thoughtful. She had a way of making every topic meaningful. She was endlessly curious about the world and about my thoughts, too.
“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.”
After she was gone, I realized that even as she was dying, Mary had remained deeply engaged with life. Our talks were not about death at all—they were about living fully, wringing meaning and joy out of every moment. In fact, she was more curious about life than many younger people I know. Even when reminiscing, she looked at her past from new angles, always searching for understanding. And no matter where the stories led, she returned again and again to her theme of resilience—the power to adjust to whatever life brings.
At her memorial service, that same theme echoed through the stories people told. Friends, family, and neighbors shared how Mary’s quiet strength and perspective had helped them through their own challenges. Again and again, people spoke of her ability to make others feel comfortable and grateful for their own lives, no matter what they were facing.
In the end, Mary’s greatest lesson was the one she lived every day: life isn’t about what happens to us—it’s about how we adjust, how we grow, and how we keep our hearts open, all the way to the end.
