BUZZ BOOK: 100 years of wisdom
Judy Gaman was a self-described workaholic who rarely found the time to stop and smell the roses — until she met a centenarian who would change her life. In her position as director of business development at a medical practice, Gaman was tasked with writing health and wellness books. While working on her 2013 book “Age to Perfection: How to Thrive to 100, Happy, Healthy, and Wise,” she interviewed a number of centenarians hoping to glean their advice.
That’s when she met Lucille Fleming, a vibrant 100-year-old residing in an assisted living center.
“We became friends, and then we became best friends,” Gaman said. “‘Best friends’ just doesn’t even seem strong enough. My life was so dramatically changed by that almost four-year friendship with her.” Every Friday, Judy picked out a restaurant and brought Lucille out to lunch. “We’d just chat about our lives and the human experience,” she told The Post. “It was so fascinating to have not just a friendship but a mentorship with someone who had so much wisdom.”
Lucille, who was born in 1912, the year the Titanic sank, immigrated to the United States from Canada as a young woman during the Great Depression, put herself through school, and ultimately worked as a nurse up until her 80s. The first lifechanging lesson she taught Judy: To slow down sometimes.
“I was wearing that 60 hour work-week like a badge of honor. My business defined me,” Gaman told The Post. “But I just broke my routine. I was stopping long enough to taste that lunch. It just became so much more important to me than titles or hitting unrealistic goals.”
The two continued their weekly lunches until Lucille passed just two weeks shy of 104 in 2016. She was so deeply impacted by their connection, Gaman decided to memorialize the experience in “Love, Life, and Lucille.” “I started writing a book about her and her story, and then it became about our friendship, and then it really evolved into a true memoir.”
In her book, Gaman passes Lucille’s wisdom from a century-long life forward to readers. The most important lesson she hopes to impart: “Life is all about perspective. Every day we should be so grateful for things that go right, because things will go wrong. But we will all be okay, and I think that kind of hope is something that maybe we all just need to remember.”