Share Your Passion! Contest Award Winning Essay ... - Front Porch

Share Your Passion!At Front Porch we believe having and expressing a PASSION in life is a key factor to living well and weencourage our residents and employees to do so. We are pleased to present the following awardwinningessay as submitted to the Front Porch Share Your Passion! Contest. For more videosand essays, visit frontporch.net.My Passion-My AnnieBy Doug Richie, residentCarlsbad By The Sea Retirement CommunitySecond Place WinnerMy passion was revealed to me on August 19, 1945. I had just turnedseventeen and was in my first semester of college. When I laid eyes onthe blind date that had been arranged for me it was as though I hadbeen struck by lightning. Before that evening was over I knew that I hadmet the girl that I was going to marry. Four years later we weremarried in Abington, Pennsylvania, in a Quaker meeting house wherewe married ourselves.Throughout our four year courtship we were attending colleges threehundred miles apart. Our separation served only to inflame my passion.This was the era of formal dances where the girls wore long dresseswith corsages given to them by their dates wearing tuxedoes. We danced to big bands in theCasino in Saratoga Springs made famous by Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell in the 1900s.We exchanged over one thousand letters during our courtship.How should I describe this woman who became my passion and agreed to be my lifelongpartner? Her outward beauty is unquestioned. She is even more beautiful in my eyes today thanshe was the day I met her sixty seven years ago. Her many characteristics that come to mindinclude: courageous, determined, relentless, entrepreneurial, stubborn, insightful, unflappable,friendly and outgoing. She also has complete faith that things will always work out.My admiration for Annie began to develop when I discovered what a struggle she was having tocomplete an academically rigorous program to earn a Bachelor of Science degree as well as adegree in nursing. Annie has a learning disability. She worked twice as hard as her classmates.Early into her clinical training she contracted hepatitis and was hospitalized for four weeks. Thedirector of the nursing program told her she would have to drop out and start over again thenext year. She begged for the right to continue and agreed to make up the missed clinical timeat the end of her program. This required her to stay on in the hospital for several months afterher classmates had graduated.

An example of Annie’s courage was demonstrated during the early weeks of her fourthpregnancy. A miscarriage was threatening. Her obstetrician gave her a choice of going to bedfor the balance of the pregnancy or allowing nature to take its course. She chose to go to bedin the belief that this pregnancy was meant to be. Having “Mommy” in bed for several monthswas a true test for our family. Our fourth child was delivered at seven months by emergencyCaesarian under precarious conditions. But for the skill of the obstetrician and the pediatricianboth mother and child would have died. Just for the record, that fourth child earned an MBA atStanford.Having worked as a school nurse for fifteen years, Annie was granted a sabbatical leave. At theage of forty nine she set off on a four month tour, traveling alone, in the South Pacific. Shevolunteered in school and public health programs in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Westand American Samoa and French Polynesia. Her experiences included working with the FlyingDoctor Service in the Outback of Australia, living on a remote island in Fiji with a public healthnurse where there was no electricity or running water. She lived with a Tahitian family on BoraBora where no one spoke English. The story of these experiences as well as much more abouther is told in the book I wrote, entitled My Annie.Annie’s uncanny ability to recognize opportunity provided the motivation for us to invest in anumber of income properties. One of these was an old motel in Palm Springs. After retiringfrom our professions we spent thirteen years managing the property. This was a challenging andrewarding way to end our working lives. When the time came for us to retire it was her goodjudgment that prompted us to consider moving to a continuing care retirement community.Sixty three years of living together has provided me with unanticipated excitement, a family tobe justly proud of and a romantic relationship with my passion that has made me a supremelyhappy man.