00:00:11:18 - 00:00:46:00 Unknown Hi, I'm Catherine and I'm Gail, and welcome to women Over 70 Aging Reimagined, our award winning weekly podcast. Now in its sixth year, visit women over 70.com to explore our offerings and join our Aging Reimagined circle. Our free online community where women of all ages connect, share and re-imagine aging as a time of creativity, growth, and empowerment. We're glad you're here and today we're delighted to be talking with Alana Lansberg Lewis. 00:00:46:02 - 00:01:23:16 Unknown She is our advocate for Women aging, part of that series. Now, Alana is a lifetime advocate for women and aging. She began her career as a civil rights and labor lawyer, worked with the United Nations Development Fund for women, and co-founded the Steven Lewis Foundation, with her father serving as executive director for 17 years. She's been recognized as one of Canada's Top 25 Women of Influence, received the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in 2020 for accepted the Lions Club International Humanitarian Award, and behalf of the Foundation. 00:01:23:18 - 00:01:51:20 Unknown What drives Alana most is the resilience and wisdom of older women, especially African grandmothers, raising grandchildren orphaned by Aids. She amplifies their voices to show how older women's experiences can transform how we see aging, leadership and legacy. Alana hosts the podcast Wisdom at Work Older Women, Elder Women and Grandmothers on the move and recently established the Wisdom Network Fund. 00:01:51:22 - 00:02:02:09 Unknown So welcome, Alana. We're thrilled to have you with us as an advocate for women aging. And we're happy to have met you through the ages. Collective group in our podcasters who are promoting 00:02:02:11 - 00:02:03:15 Unknown age positive 00:02:03:15 - 00:02:04:10 Unknown stories, 00:02:04:12 - 00:02:06:13 Unknown Welcome. Let's start with your 00:02:06:13 - 00:02:07:03 Unknown journey. 00:02:07:03 - 00:02:15:12 Unknown what did it first inspired you to focus on women's rights and then later on, the experiences of older women? 00:02:15:14 - 00:02:47:06 Unknown Yeah. Thank you, Gail and Catherine, it's lovely to join you. I guess really, my story starts in utero. Because my mother was, a feminist journalist in Canada for over 25 years, and I was sort of raised literally and figuratively at the bosom of women's rights and feminism and in Canada and, I guess it was just sort of by osmosis that I grew up sort of intensely aware of the stories of women, because my mother was because she was a journalist. 00:02:47:06 - 00:03:05:14 Unknown She was telling stories of women and, and interviewing thousands and thousands of women. And so I always had an awareness around gender equality and the importance of having an egalitarian society and what it would take to build that. And and, of course, as I got older, I had my own interests and my own way of interpreting that. 00:03:05:14 - 00:03:29:03 Unknown And living that. And so I, I went to law school, and I, I went to law school because I really not so much because I wanted to be a lawyer, funnily enough. But because my grandfather, who was, a labor politician in Canada when I was ten years old, said to me, you really should go to law school when you grow up, because that's how you understand power and influence. 00:03:29:03 - 00:03:54:15 Unknown And if you go to law school, you'll really you'll really have a deep insight into how to affect social justice and change in the world. And so, because I grew up thinking about women's rights and also just the importance of equality for everyone, not just women. I, I never forgot what he said to me. And I thought, well, if that's the case, then I'll, I'll go to law school and I'll learn about how law can become a transformational, if possible, be transformational for women's rights. 00:03:54:17 - 00:04:27:00 Unknown And then really, the, the focus on older women or the preoccupation with older women, their rights, their voices, experience wisdom, really came as as you outlined in your lovely intro, the work with African grandmothers. And I know we'll talk about that more, but that's where I really, understood a couple of key things. One. One was that I had I had just had my second child and, and even with my first child, my mother, who was, you know, sort of a tiger mama and a strong activist in her own right. 00:04:27:02 - 00:04:49:17 Unknown When I saw her with my newborn son, I and I saw that everything he did was wonderful and magical and marvelous. And then as I got a little bit older, they were allowed to do things she would never have let us do. And I thought, there's some alchemy around Grandmother Hood. There's something that I don't understand. I am beginning to understand the intense, almost pathological love that mothers have for their children. 00:04:49:19 - 00:05:11:01 Unknown But there's something about grand motherhood, and about aunties and older women and how they relate to children. That is new to me. And it's deep. It's a profound bond and it was beautiful to watch in my own family. But it started me thinking about how important that is in our lives and why do we think of that just in terms of the family dynamic and what we need in our families? 00:05:11:01 - 00:05:33:05 Unknown Why don't we see that as a societal benefit, a societal necessity? And it took me down this road. Yeah. How did you get involved in the, African grant without the African grandmothers? Yeah. Well, that's a that's the that's sort of extraordinary story. And exemplifies some of what I was talking about, which is that, I started this, co-founded this foundation, with my father. 00:05:33:08 - 00:06:10:22 Unknown It wasn't a family foundation so much in terms of our resources. So all of the money had to be raised, every penny had to be raised. And that foundation was and still exists, to support grassroots, community led organizations at the frontlines of the Aids pandemic in the 14 countries, 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa that have the highest prevalence rate of HIV, there were all of these small community organizations in the early two, thousands of the nadir of the Aids pandemic, thousands and thousands and thousands of people in their most often in their reproductive years, dying of Aids and leaving behind 15 million more children orphaned by Aids. 00:06:10:24 - 00:06:39:21 Unknown And we were working with and still supporting organizations that are doing service delivery and awareness raising and looking after orphans and building wreaths, stitching the fabric of their communities together. In the early days, with no drugs available, it was just dying with dignity and trying to figure out how to raise awareness. It was truly heartbreaking and heart wrenching, but also very inspiring because the communities, even with no cure in sight, even with no medication in sight in the early years, came much later than it did in North America. 00:06:39:23 - 00:07:02:12 Unknown Had so much resilience, so much determination to live with dignity and to die with dignity and to keep everyone going. And I was sitting in the foundation is the executive director, and I started to get these proposals and my colleagues to, to saying with parenting workshops and caring for the caregivers. And I was thinking, why do you need parenting workshops, in the midst of the Aids pandemic? 00:07:02:12 - 00:07:20:10 Unknown So we called up our partners, in community in Africa. And we said, and I had a suspicion that it was grandmothers. And I said, these are these grandmothers. And they said, yes. And I said, well, why aren't you saying that they're grandmothers? Why aren't weren't you talking about grandmothers? And they said, well, the grandmothers have stepped in and stepped in. 00:07:20:10 - 00:07:44:02 Unknown Legions of grandmothers stepping into the breach to care for their orphaned grandchildren. And there were grandmothers older women were burying, you know, 2 to 5 of their adult children and inheriting the burden of care for two year olds and 20 year olds under their roofs. And these were women in their twilight years, did not expect to have to raise children or have an income. 00:07:44:04 - 00:08:22:15 Unknown But they were also all of them in an agony of loss and raising children. They raised their own children that this was a completely different context. These children were going to funerals every Saturday and losing their parents, their siblings, their family members. And so I started to go to the foundation supporters and donors, other foundations and say, look, there is this extraordinary phenomenon unfolding on the African continent of grandmothers just raising the next generation, 1 or 2 generations of children, and they're just jumping in and they're, they're becoming experts on HIV and malaria, HIV and tuberculosis. 00:08:22:15 - 00:09:03:16 Unknown How do you raise children who are suffering terribly from all of this loss? They don't have money for school fees, which are, ubiquitous across Africa. And so why aren't we telling the story and how do we need to support them? And donor after donors said to me, well, old women, they're not a sustainable investment. And I was so bothered by that response, I just couldn't believe that that that that's how we were going to treat this, that, that old women were not worth funding because they were older, particularly since they were really, with full heart and so much loss, you know, burying the adult children and then getting up the next 00:09:03:16 - 00:09:24:08 Unknown morning and having all of these mouths to feed and, roofs to put over children's heads. And I thought, you know, this just can't this can't stand. We have to do something. But I couldn't figure out how to raise the money. So we decided to I just thought to myself, looking at my mother and how she was with my children, I thought maybe grandmothers would understand. 00:09:24:08 - 00:09:46:03 Unknown Maybe Canadian grandmothers would actually get it. How devastating it would be to lose your adult child and then have to raise your grandchildren, not just some of your grandchildren, but all of them multiple grandchildren from different adult children. And so we went to the Canadian grandmothers, and it was an extraordinary avalanche of support. I often get credited with having this brilliant idea. 00:09:46:05 - 00:10:10:17 Unknown It was a good idea, but it was. I had no idea, what was going to happen. I had no I could never have visualized or envisioned how older women, grandmothers, they got a lot of them common ground. Others in the in the movement, older women who don't have biological grandchildren, but they're part of the movement. I would never have been able to predict how they rallied to the call was extraordinarily inspiring. 00:10:10:19 - 00:10:44:03 Unknown And so there were 10,000 Canadian grandmothers. They've raised over 40 to $45 million over the last decade. They're still going strong because, of course, this pandemic continues to ravage, sub-Saharan Africa. And the grandmothers in Africa have formed their own movements. And our, you know, advocating for pensions and support for children. And so it's it's an extraordinarily inspiring story, one that's rooted in hardship and loss and pain and devastation of family, but also one of unbelievable, indefatigable loyalty of of older women and grandmothers. 00:10:44:03 - 00:11:04:19 Unknown So that's that's how I got involved in all of it. And it turned my life around, too. It made me see a whole other dimension of the human family that I think we we really have to pay attention to. Instead, the movement has gone beyond it has an even broader reach than the African countries. So what's happened with that? 00:11:04:21 - 00:11:24:22 Unknown What is happening with that? Well, I think it has gone beyond that. Certainly there were groups that started in the US, in the UK as well, supporting them. One of the key features of the campaign, it was called The Grandmothers is called the Grandmothers to Grandmothers campaign. I think of it now, I think the grandmothers themselves, both in Africa and in Canada, turned it into a movement. 00:11:24:24 - 00:11:54:08 Unknown It one of the central tenets was solidarity, not charity. And so it really was about solidarity of older women recognizing each other across cultures, across continents as capable, determined, insightful agents of change, you know, not just as beneficiaries, not seeing sort of each other in this North-South disparity of power and privilege, but really, what was so touching and interesting was the grandmothers and older women grandmothers in Canada and in the UK. 00:11:54:08 - 00:12:15:20 Unknown In the U.S., who got involved, understood almost organically what it meant to be marginalized, what it meant to suddenly not be seen or not be seen as relevant and vital to your community in the same way as you were when you were younger. And so for them, it wasn't such a leap to understand how extraordinary the African grandmothers were in the roles that they were playing. 00:12:16:01 - 00:12:41:23 Unknown And I think that has extended beyond that. It's certainly for me, extended my landscape, my visual landscape. I started to see older women everywhere, in a different way, in different movements and different, social justice issues. Grandmothers and older women, working on climate justice, working on reproductive rights, working on, indigenous rights and land rights. 00:12:41:23 - 00:13:10:03 Unknown And so I started I really I realized that there are older women congregating, coming together in common cause around the world, and really supporting younger people in their movements. They're always determined to work intergenerational, multi-generational, a real embracing of difference in generations. And so it has gone beyond, I think that in terms of movements, I don't even think we realize that they exist. 00:13:10:05 - 00:13:34:00 Unknown These there are movements of older women all over the world, and they don't even know about each other because who's funding them, who's allowing them to come together. Right. And that's one of my questions, is how does this work continue in such grand? You know, scope. Yeah. And now what's your what's your role in it today? Well, I think I have a very modest role in it. 00:13:34:00 - 00:13:58:13 Unknown It's pretty tangential, but I think that the, you know, when I first thought about bringing grandmothers together and grandmothers, a lot of people told me that it was just it was nutty. Wasn't that the idea? Why would they get involved? What? They don't have time. A lot of them are looking after their own grandchildren. So they're it's the daycare isn't open on a day or they're doing other things. 00:13:58:15 - 00:14:29:01 Unknown A lot of people thought it was not a maybe not a bad idea, but not an idea that had real legs or had real movement. So I think when we think about grand scales often, I think we're, we're sort of deterred by the, the grandiose or the ambitious ness of it. But if you think about how many women are, how many older women there are in the world, and the fact of we're going to make up the majority of people on the planet, we're growing every, every year. 00:14:29:01 - 00:14:57:09 Unknown Exponential number of women who are aging. And if you think about older women's rights and you think about how because older women have sort of triple jeopardy, right? It's about ageism. They're older, they're women. And depending where they live, they're in different geographical positions of of paucity of resources. And so, you know, I don't think older women are sitting around doing nothing about that. 00:14:57:09 - 00:15:18:24 Unknown And so when you look around the world and you see, for instance, this one organization called the Barefoot College in India, in Kenya, in Guatemala, now they've just opened, they went into communities that didn't have electricity, and they trained older women to become solar engineers and to bring electricity and light to their communities. And then those older women have an income and they support their families. 00:15:19:01 - 00:15:36:20 Unknown And you see in Africa, in the context in which I was talking about older women in sub-Saharan Africa who were having suddenly to pay for school fees and raise all these children, they became carpenters. They made school desks, and they also made coffins because they were desperately needed and still are. So you had older women, carpenters and engineers. 00:15:36:20 - 00:15:58:06 Unknown And so I do think that there's this momentum, you know, that in terms of the grand scale, it'll I think it already exists. I think that the opportunity for older women and grandmothers and grandmothers to be invited into the spaces that exist and to come together and know about each other and support each other across geographies and across differences. 00:15:58:11 - 00:16:22:06 Unknown Those spaces don't really exist yet. And and that's what we need to facilitate because they already exist and they're already doing it. So we just need to unleash their power, unleash their energy. And I think that I saw that in the movement with Canadian and African grandmothers, and I saw how powerful and enduring it was, and how it's gone on for over, over almost 15 years now. 00:16:22:08 - 00:16:43:16 Unknown So how are you carrying that mission forward now? Yeah. So you did ask me about my role. Well, in in my own small way, I, I'm just have I've been inspired by their determination, their indomitable. I don't know how I could not match that. So I've just in my own life, I've tried to carry on. I sit on the board of the foundation to support, continue to support that work. 00:16:43:18 - 00:17:08:22 Unknown As you mentioned kindly, I have my own podcast because I really believe in amplifying the stories of these older women around the world who are doing such wonderful and important work, artists as well. There are many wonderful older women artists that we seem to forget about or don't notice. And so part of it is shining a spotlight on what older women are doing and learning as you do, bringing them into the sort of the conversation the mainstream conversation into the world again. 00:17:08:23 - 00:17:31:02 Unknown And I think and then I built a platform, called was work wic w o r k was working where older women who are activists and who want to join with each other, on issues that they care about, whether it's climate change, whether it's Cedaw, the women's convention, whether it's the new older persons convention, the rights of older persons that they're drafting at the United Nations. 00:17:31:02 - 00:17:50:13 Unknown Now, they can come together and they can meet each other across continents and countries. So that's a place people can go. And then I launched this fund, the Wisdom at Work Fund. And that was really that's a it's at the moment, it's a very modest, attempt. It's not a new organization. It's a little it's a little fund working with the Myriad Foundation. 00:17:50:15 - 00:18:15:01 Unknown And really, that was because I, I, I have to be honest, it just came out of a personal frustration. I was interviewing all these wonderful older women doing fantastic work, and I was talking to them in the the women in Brazil who were fighting dictatorship at one point said, we want to meet the women from the Philippines that you interviewed who were fighting to tell that, you know, but we have no way of communicating with them. 00:18:15:01 - 00:18:40:05 Unknown And I thought, in this moment in the world, when things are so fraught and when there's there are poly crises everywhere, who's going to fall off the radar completely? Who's never going to get funding? I mean, we need funding for everything. And, and, and to lift people up and to improve the human condition. But for sure, then older women will never get the funding for the groups and for the work that they're doing. 00:18:40:07 - 00:19:05:19 Unknown And so I thought, let's let me just begin with my good friend and colleague Jackson Kingery. And Jackson runs a wonderful organization in Uganda called Nyanga, and they have 20 over 20,000 grandmothers raising over 90,000, 90 over 90,000 children orphaned by Aids. They have two elementary schools and a high school. And Jackson's the visionary leader who started that whole, that whole broader community together. 00:19:05:21 - 00:19:33:18 Unknown So he's joined me, to co-found this little fund just to raise as much money as we can, to give small grants. It doesn't require a lot of money, but small grants to any and all of older women's groups so that they can continue their good work, but also just be brought into the community of social justice work, activist work, social change, have a voice and have some support and not have to do it always on the margins. 00:19:33:20 - 00:19:53:02 Unknown Funds that are, available for this to support this, this effort, the other the funds organizations or other organizations that are funding these efforts. I'm not aware of any that have that singular focus. No, there may be. And I don't want to disparage them. If they're out there, I hope they make themselves known. But, not that I'm aware of. 00:19:53:03 - 00:20:27:09 Unknown Not with that singular purpose. No. And I do think that I keep meeting older women the world over who whether they have great means or few, really do get it. They understand that older women are have the potential and already do play critical roles in, in our societies, not just in their families, but but in our societies. And considering how tough times are around the world, why would you lose such a such an experienced part of the demography of our human family? 00:20:27:15 - 00:20:56:00 Unknown I just can't figure that out. You know, these are not every old woman is wise. I mean, I don't think every old woman would call herself wise, but every old woman has wisdom, just lived experience. So do you see yourself keeping up this work for many years to come? Yes. I mean, I just turned 60, so now I've finally arrived, at something I'm approximating approximating the place I started this work when I was 40, but. 00:20:56:00 - 00:21:16:11 Unknown But, I now feel like, gentlemen, a little more legitimacy. You know, one of the things that I. That that I've noticed or that I really, I've learned and appreciated is when I'm talking to older women who are doing all of this interesting work, there is a sort of liberation. I'm speaking to something that I have not yet experienced myself. 00:21:16:11 - 00:21:37:17 Unknown So I have to be honest, every time I interviewed a woman for my podcast or sat down with a group who was doing this work, I thought, you know, I'm actually jealous of this, of this stage of life. I can't wait till I reach the point because I think, you know, younger women are busy raising families, building careers, doing their jobs, figuring out life, figuring out who they're going to be, who they want to be. 00:21:37:19 - 00:21:53:13 Unknown When I talk to older women, I often find that there is a sort of liberation from some of those concerns, from some of those preoccupations that are a necessary part of life. There, all these developmental stages. We don't talk a lot or think a lot about what it means to be an older woman, and we kind of lump all of us together. 00:21:53:13 - 00:22:18:15 Unknown You turn 60 and suddenly you're an older woman, just like a nine year old or an eight year old. But as you know well, partly from the name of your podcast exemplifies it. Different stages have different realities, and older is is at the moment a huge category catch phrase. So when I'm interviewing women and talking to women, meeting activists, women and artists who are in their 70s and older, they're not worrying about what their children will think if they speak out. 00:22:18:17 - 00:22:38:23 Unknown They're not worried about what the principal of the school say. If they object to something they're not thinking about, how do I deal with what's going on in the office and how do I manage children and life and work and home and family? They're there's a sort of liberation from some of that self-consciousness, some of those those external concerns. 00:22:39:00 - 00:22:56:19 Unknown But there's also, how can I say this, diplomatically, there's a sort of what the hell, you know, thing, and you're not going to leave this world to be inherited in the state. It is for for those who come after you, even if you don't have biological grandchildren, you're just not. You don't want to leave the world worse off than you found it. 00:22:56:21 - 00:23:17:07 Unknown And so there's a kind of freedom, almost. I said, liberation, I mean it, I haven't yet quite arrived at that point, but I look forward to it. And it's it has extraordinary power. I think it's really a force in the world that we're not we're not honoring it, but we're also we're losing something when we don't avail ourselves of it as a society. 00:23:17:09 - 00:23:41:18 Unknown Yeah. So yes, the rest of my life, I mean it's so incredibly important, especially as you say, what's going on in our world now and how women's voices are so, so much ever to quiet women's voices to erase our voices. And what you're doing is as you use the amplifying, amplifying and liberating. It's just enormously important. Yeah, I think so. 00:23:41:18 - 00:24:10:07 Unknown And I also there's something else that I learned, actually, mostly from the African grandmothers who really had a transformative impact on my life. So much depth of lived experience and knowledge, a lot of hardship, but also an unbelievable amount of community building and love and resilience and, I remember one of the grandmothers saying to me, in South Africa, she said to me, you know, grandmothers always everyone thinks of grandmothers as having so much love. 00:24:10:09 - 00:24:38:03 Unknown We pour out our love into our grandchildren, into our community, into our families. And yes, that's true about us, but it's not just a sort of it's not just a romantic kind of love. It's not just a sort of, emotional kind of love. Actually. Love is a power. It's a force. It's a motivating force. And for us, she was saying, you know, love is at the center of it. 00:24:38:05 - 00:24:57:00 Unknown And it's not just, lovey dovey love, which we do love. And it's not just hugs from grandma. It's it's actually a force. And it can be a political force. It can be a creative force, but it's a force that we harness in our very beings, in our in our age and in our knowledge and in the way that we relate to others. 00:24:57:00 - 00:25:21:18 Unknown And so we bring a kind of influence of how to treat each other with care, how to value human life. We're at a stage in life where we really value, every person and every life. And this is something that we bring to activism, to community, to family. And it it's stayed in my head. It's it's sort of become the motivating, chair for me. 00:25:21:20 - 00:25:53:19 Unknown I think you bring up a very important point, and I've been thinking about this while you're talking in that, and you just stated it beautifully, and that is that grandmothers have have such an important role in grandchildren's lives. But all of this funding that is needed and it's it's really not for the grandmothers, it's for the next generation of children who won't grow up if the grandmothers can't give them help. 00:25:53:21 - 00:26:19:21 Unknown That's right. And I think we have a lot to learn from different communities of grandmothers. Indigenous grandmothers, in all their diversity are water protectors, land protectors, transmitters of culture and language. There also is of projects to preserve their language and pass it down and undo histories of colonialism and repression and residential schools and and to talk about the violence and to talk about what had happened and to find ways to heal and community. 00:26:19:23 - 00:26:40:05 Unknown There's a lot to learn from them. And, and grandmothers, the African grandmothers, in all their diversity, in many different countries and cultures and languages, they also bring an unbelievable resilience and determination. One of the grandmothers said to me, I'll never forget it. I'm not we're not going to raise another generation for the grave and their determination to end Aids. 00:26:40:10 - 00:26:58:22 Unknown You know, that's just Titanic in terms of in terms of the possibility of it. And their refusal to give up hope, even the amidst of of a of an apocalypse. So there's so much that we can learn from older women who you know, we think of it as the end of life, but sort of toward the end of life. 00:26:58:22 - 00:27:28:10 Unknown But in fact, you know, I see it as sort of the beginning of a different kind of force. And it is it's to save the planet, it's to enrich children. And it's also, I think, to teach us, that in their own right, older women have their own human rights that are being ignored and transgressed, access to health care being counted in statistics where they're really counted, just looking at older women in their own lives, have their own lives to live. 00:27:28:10 - 00:27:49:20 Unknown And and that's since we're all aging. Why would we not guarantee that for every person on this planet, we're all going to reach, if we're lucky enough to live long enough, we're all going to reach this age. So why would we not ensure that the richness of older age is not preserved? That's all of our concern. That can't possibly be the concern just of older people or older women. 00:27:49:22 - 00:28:21:16 Unknown We have a new job for you. Yes. Person of women over 70 aging. We've had. You so glad we have it. We'll have a transcript of this because it's just everything you've said. It's just it just conveys. So beautifully. So, authentically why this work is so important. And for individuals, communities, the globe, the future. Yes. Yeah. It's it's incredible. 00:28:21:18 - 00:28:46:21 Unknown Oh thank you. Well, thank you for the opportunity to talk about it. I think that, you've opened the space is so important. I've listened to every one of your podcasts, and, and every time I listen to it, I think, you know, you have one podcast, I have another. Just think about it. How many women we're not hearing from, how many women have extraordinary stories, you know, life stories, life experiences, crazy stories, hilarious stories. 00:28:46:21 - 00:29:18:23 Unknown It's one of the things I also have loved about it. Well, being around older women is that the sense of humor is pretty irreverent at times. From talking about sex to talking about, relationships, to talking about just the general craziness of the world, there's there's a humor that we also need in our world that I find older women have a particular lens on, moving through life with grace, outrage, humor, you know, kind of recombination that it's a great combination. 00:29:18:23 - 00:29:49:14 Unknown Yeah, I in some ways, I, I wasn't joking when I said I, I often feel jealous of it. I feel like so a lot of, you know, we always like to ask everybody, you've given us some wonderful personal reflections to think about and all. And what's been the most rewarding part of your advocacy journey so far? Have I, you know, I think. 00:29:49:16 - 00:30:26:06 Unknown I there's I have so many answers to that. But I think at the heart of it is, a sense of, in the midst of a lot of cataclysmic events in the world. I have I always have a sense of hope and I about the human family. And I also, I've been deeply, deeply honored, actually, to to feel connected, deeply connected, you know, sort of from the human spirit to, to storytelling, deeply connected to the reality of older women's lives, in particular. 00:30:26:06 - 00:30:58:12 Unknown But because older women embrace the full panoply of humanity it brings in, it just brings into your life this extraordinary richness. It's a beautiful and motivating thing, but it also sustains me. I have to say, the most rewarding part of it is how sustaining it is. And in moments of trial and tribulation, and also in the depth of joy that you can experience through knowing that you are in common cause with many, many millions of women around the world that I will never have the pleasure joy to meet. 00:30:58:12 - 00:31:10:14 Unknown But they're out there and I feel them every day. It's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much, Alana. This is so inspiring and so hopeful. 00:31:10:16 - 00:31:15:00 Unknown Want. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate everything you do so much. 00:31:15:06 - 00:31:17:20 Unknown And thanks for listening to women over 70. 00:31:17:20 - 00:31:46:06 Unknown Your loyalty helps our community thrive, and we invite you to get more involved in the aging, Reimagined circle and your voice as we challenge myths and create bold new narratives about women in aging. Visit women over 70.com to learn more. And women over 70 is proud to be part of the Age wise collective. As Catherine mentioned in the beginning, a group of women podcasters championing pro aging voices. 00:31:46:08 - 00:32:16:09 Unknown And this week, we shine the light on gerontologist Sarah Sally Duplantier. She has Wellness Wednesdays, which she hosts, and these free and recorded webinars feature experts on topics about healthy aging. And you can visit my Zing Zang magazine life.com one word zing Live.com to learn more and we hope you do.