LIFE ON THE EDGE

By Edwin Cooney

Perhaps the most admirable people we ever meet are those who “live on the edge” of life. It might be the soldier, the explorer, the policeman or fireman, a person living with a disability or with a life threatening illness. Surely, one who has weathered life’s inevitable storms to reach 100 years of age could be said to be “living on the edge of life.”

On Wednesday, December 30th, 2009, I traveled from California to Western New York State to celebrate the 100th birthday of the dearest person I know. Her name is Edith Gassman.

Nearly forty-six years ago, “Mrs. G.” as I then referred to her, a houseparent at the New York State School for the Blind in Batavia, altered my life by inviting me, an eighteen-year-old, into her family under the cloak of her loving care.

Born on Saturday, January 1st, 1910 at home on Potomac Avenue in Buffalo, New York, Edith was the fourth in a family of seven children. Much of her childhood was spent under the loving but exacting rule of Scotch Presbyterianism. Her mother died at the age of 34 in the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic a year following the birth of Edith’s youngest sister. Several years later, Edith’s father Robert, a salesman and storekeeper, married for a second time and Edith’s half sister was born.

On Thursday, June 25th, 1931, twenty-one-year-old Edith began her happy thirty year marriage to Howard (Michael) Gassman of Attica, New York. In order to do this, Edith, who was known as Jackie by her college sorority sisters, dropped out of Geneseo, New York’s “normal school.” This very much disappointed her father, but he was far from disappointed when little Sharon was born followed by son Michael.

“Big Mike” Gassman died suddenly on Thursday, October 5th, 1961 of a heart attack following cataract surgery. Devastated by her husband’s sudden death, Edith decided to give up her job as a secretary to go to work as a houseparent at the School for the Blind in nearby Batavia.

Though tiny in physical stature, she began nurturing a dormitory of over forty energetic, sometimes mischievous teenage boys beginning in the fall of 1963. Only seldom did she raise her quiet voice. Edith always maintained the respect and abiding regard of her charges because they knew she genuinely cared about them. She would remain a housemother until her retirement at age 65 in 1975.

Like any person who lives to a great age, Edith has experienced the ravages of death on many occasions. There was the traumatic loss of her mother in 1918 and the sudden passing of Big Mike in 1961. In the 1920’s, Edith suffered a serious lower jaw infection due to the use of contaminated dental equipment. Her chin swelled to the point that it temporarily rested on her chest. This was before penicillin. During her first pregnancy she developed ureic poisoning which threatened her life, but was unlikely to harm her baby. She once told me that she used to sew baby clothes while weeping over the possibility that she wouldn’t live to care for what was to be her and Big Mike’s “beautiful little girl, Sharon”. Just last August, at the age of 99 years and seven months, she suffered an attack of pneumonia, the effects of which are still with her.

To think of and love such a person as Edith Gassman, there is a tendency to paint everything about that person as heroic. Edith possesses many wonderful traits. She is smart, reflective, nurturing, and sensitive, possessing a spiritual quality worthy of her religious upbringing. A petite blonde when young, she was considered quite beautiful. She is also very human and subject to the misjudgments and foibles we all share in varying degrees. Still, her virtues far outweigh anything that could be dreamed up as less than admirable about her.

Recently, someone asked Edith what she’d done to live to one hundred. Her response was:

“I drink almost no water. I never exercise—and I eat lots and lots of ice cream.” Her favorite food is strawberry shortcake.

Her brother David, sister Winifred, brother Gordon Douglas, brother Robert, and half-sister Lois are all gone. Only her sister Mary Jane remains. (I asked her over the weekend what it felt like at her age to be a baby sister. Her response was: “Just fine, thank you very much!” Aunt Jane has always kept things in wonderful perspective.)

Certainly there is joy that Edith has lived to be one hundred years old. However, Edith’s 100-year trek has not been without its price. Many she has loved the best are gone. Three neighbors, two of whom were close friends, and another who was only 35-years-old, have recently died. This wonderfully thoughtful, nurturing and sweet lady often wonders why she has been allowed to live so long.

Although Edith has lived long, for those of us who love her, as selfish as it may seem, she hasn’t lived long enough. As for how she feels about being 100, she doesn’t see it as an achievement. Much about it is a lonesome struggle. However, neither Edith nor anyone else attains that great age out of fear of the future. With all its struggles and meaning, life is what it always has been—another day to live, to offer and to accept love.

As she was departing from her grandmother’s last Sunday night, one of Edith’s granddaughters assured her that she looked forward to celebrating “GG’s 101st, 102nd, and 103rd birthdays…” and she only stopped counting because to continue would have been pointless.

The question the rest of us invariably ponder is whether we might live to this great age with all of its joys and challenges. The best answer I can offer with all of its inadequacy is: “You can if you may and you may if you can.”

If living past 100 isn’t living on the edge of life, then life must have no edge.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY