Sometimes they just talk about words. This week, Vaill said she had planned to ask Johnston what she thinks about the difference between “dignity” and “self-worth.” Vaill said she hears a lot of talk about aging with dignity, and a whole lot less about keeping a sense of self-worth. They’re not the same, Vaill thinks. While she’s all for self-worth, she doesn’t feel very positive about some of the changes that come with aging.

“I could try to age with dignity, but that wouldn’t be me,” Vaill said. “I think more like Dylan Thomas, you know — don’t go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage.”

Vaill and Johnston meet up twice each week as participants in the Mercy Care of the Adirondacks Friendship Volunteer program. The program currently has 99 volunteers who work with 150 elders around the Tri-Lakes area, according to the program’s director of elder care and volunteer services, Katherine Rhodes.

“The friendship part of the friendship volunteers is the main driver behind the program, but its not the only thing,” Rhodes said, adding that in addition to company and companionship, the organization’s volunteers can also help with things like transportation and running errands.

Mercy Care is always looking for more volunteers. For those interested, their next volunteer training will be held in January.

After an intake interview with each elder, Mercy Care pairs them with volunteers with similar personalities and interests. At her intake interview, Vaill had indicated a need for therapeutic walking, which is partly why she was paired with Johnston. Johnston loves walking, and that’s one of the things they do most often.

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Sense of self

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Vaill, now in her late 80s, lived most of her life in northern New Hampshire. She worked in education for 20 years as an elementary school art teacher, then moved to Franconia, New Hampshire, and started a second career in municipal administration. She ended up serving for 10 years as a selectman.

“I had the wonderful opportunity to have two completely disparate careers and it was great because it was very stimulating,” Vaill said.

As a selectman in a small town, she did a little bit of everything and found it all fascinating, from sewage system design to learning how to run a cemetery or administrate welfare.

Vaill moved to Lake Placid in 2020, shortly after her husband’s death, to live closer to her older brother. Not long after the move, the country went into lockdown. She was cut off from her home and community of 40 years and had to contend with vision loss that meant she could no longer drive herself places.

“I became extremely discouraged,” Vaill said. “And felt myself slipping away from who I had known myself to be.”

That’s when Mercy Care, and Johnston, entered her life.

Johnston moved to Lake Placid after buying the Ruthie’s Run store on Main Street with her husband Wayne in 1984, which she and her husband ran for 37 years before retiring. When she retired, she was eager to begin volunteering and quickly zeroed in on Mercy Care as one of those outlets. She and Ruth began meeting in May 2022 and joke that they’ll die together.

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Beyond physical needs

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One of the conversations that the two women have frequently is how it feels to realize you’re old. Or perhaps, to realize that other people see you that way.

“The two of us laugh and talk about ‘yep, people look at us now and think, there goes an old person,’ and the realization that you are that is really hard,” Johnston said. “Because in your mind you don’t grow older.”

Vaill said that agism is rampant in our society and there is a lack of intergenerational spaces in a world where older adults are sequestered away in assisted living facilities.

“We have such a cultural focus on youth, and we all have this idea drilled into us of what it means to be older that leads to older adults often being undervalued or dismissed or ignored,” Rhodes said. “If they’re only in the back of people’s minds when we’re doing city planning or policy planning, we’re not necessarily considering their needs in addition to everybody else’s.”

Mercy Care tries to take a wholistic approach to the needs of elders, which is why they have a social model, not a medical one, Rhodes said. There are many organizations and efforts to attend to the physical needs of elders, but Vaill insists that the needs of elders go far beyond staying warm and well fed.

“There is a deeper need of not losing our identity, of not losing our sense of self worth. The older people in this country are lumped as older people,” Vaill said. “You go to a multi generational family dinner party and you’ll notice grandpa and grandma, everybody’s sweet and kind to them. ‘And can I get you some dessert? And do you need anything?’ But they talk right over their heads, right over their heads. They don’t turn and say, and what do you think about, or what’s your feeling?”

That’s what makes Vaill so thankful for Johnston. She doesn’t fuss over her or act condescending. She talks with her about books, art and plants.

“She doesn’t treat me in any way that makes me feel less myself,” Vaill said. ” She has a real gift for that, and it helps me maintain my own sense of identity, rather than becoming one of many elderly people who are living alone who need some companionship.”

Johnston’s mother was also an art teacher, and she remembers watching her paint. She took up water color painting when she retired and even took a few classes. She’s also started bringing her paintings to Vaill, who critiques them. Due to her vision problems, Vaill isn’t able to make much art anymore, although she does write poetry and essays.

On Friday, Oct. 25 at the John Brown Farm, they stopped to examine a plant at the edge of the pond. Then Vaill noticed the reflection of the fading fall colors reflected in the perfectly still water. She pointed it out to Johnston and they stopped to admire it. For the purposes of driving or reading interpretive signs, Johnston is Vaill’s eyes, but they look for beauty together.