\u201cThe future is here,\u201d the email announced. Hilda Jaffe, then 88, was letting her children know she planned to sell the family home in Verona, New Jersey. She\u2019d decided to begin life anew \u2014 on her own \u2014 in a one-bedroom apartment in Hell\u2019s Kitchen in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Fourteen years later, Jaffe, now 102, still lives alone \u2014 just a few blocks away from the frenetic flashing lights and crowds that course through Times Square.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s the rarest of seniors: a centenarian who is sharp as a tack, who carries grocery bags in each hand when she walks back from her local market, and who takes city buses to see her physicians or attend a matinee at the Metropolitan Opera.<\/p>\n
Jaffe cleans her own house, does her own laundry, manages her own finances, and stays in touch with a far-flung network of family and friends via email, WhatsApp, and Zoom. Her son, Richard Jaffe, 78, lives in San Jose, California. Her daughter, Barbara Vendriger, 75, lives in Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s an extraordinary example of an older adult living by herself and thriving.<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve spoken with dozens of seniors this past year for a series of columns on older Americans living alone. Many struggle with health issues. Many are isolated and vulnerable. But a noteworthy slice of this growing group of seniors maintain a high degree of well-being.<\/p>\n
What might account for this, particularly among people in the farthest reaches of old age?<\/p>\n
Sofiya Milman is director of Human Longevity Studies at the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.\u00a0She studies people known as \u201csuperagers\u201d \u201495 and older. \u201cAs a group, they have a very positive outlook on life\u201d and are notably resilient, like Jaffe, she told me.<\/p>\n
Qualities associated with resilience in older adults include optimism and hopefulness, an ability to adapt to changing circumstances, meaningful relationships, community connections, and physical activity, according to a growing body of research on this topic.<\/p>\n
Jaffe has those qualities in spades, along with a \u201ccan-do\u201d attitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never expected to be 102. I\u2019m as surprised as everybody else that I am here,\u201d she said recently over lunch at a Chinese restaurant just steps from her 30-story apartment building.<\/p>\n
Jaffe\u2019s perspective on her longevity is unsentimental. She credits her genetic heritage, luck, and her commitment to \u201ckeep moving,\u201d in that order. \u201cYou don\u2019t work toward it: It happens. Every day, you get up and you\u2019re a day older,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
This matter-of-fact stance is characteristic of Jaffe\u2019s approach to life. Asked to describe herself, she quickly responded \u201cpragmatic.\u201d That means having a clear-eyed view of what she can and can\u2019t do and making adjustments as necessary.<\/p>\n
Living alone suits her, she added, because she likes being independent and doing things her way. \u201cIf a problem comes up, I work it out,\u201d Jaffe said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In this, she\u2019s like other older adults who have come to terms with their \u201cI\u2019m on my own\u201d status and, for the most part, are doing quite well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, Jaffe is unusual, to say the least. There are only 101,000 centenarians in the U.S., according to the most recent Census Bureau data. Of this small group, 15% live independently or operate independently while living with someone, according to Thomas Perls, the founder and director of the New England Centenarian Study, the largest study of centenarians in the world. (Jaffe is one of 2,500 centenarians participating in the study.)<\/p>\n
About 20% of centenarians are, like Jaffe, free of physical or cognitive impairments, Perls said. An additional 15% have no age-related illnesses such as arthritis or heart disease.<\/p>\n
Practically, that means Jaffe doesn\u2019t know anybody like her. Nor do her physicians. \u201cMy primary care doctor says, \u2018You\u2019re the only centenarian who walks in without an assistant or a cane. You\u2019re off the charts,\u2019\u201d Jaffe said, when I asked about her health.<\/p>\n
She has only a few medical conditions \u2014 reflux, an occasional irregular heartbeat, osteoporosis, a touch of sciatica, a lung nodule that appeared and then disappeared. She monitors those conditions vigilantly, following her doctors\u2019 advice to the letter.<\/p>\n
Every day, Jaffe tries to walk 3,000 steps \u2014 outside if the weather is good or inside, making laps in her hallway, if the weather is bad. Her diet is simple: bread, cheese, and decaffeinated coffee for breakfast; a sandwich or eggs for lunch; often chicken and a vegetable or restaurant leftovers for dinner. She never smoked, doesn\u2019t drink alcohol, and sleeps an average of eight hours each night.<\/p>\n
Even more important, Jaffe remains engaged with other people. She has subscriptions to the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, and a chamber music series. She participates in online events and regularly sees new exhibits at four of New York\u2019s premier museums, where she has memberships. She\u2019s in regular contact with family members and friends.<\/p>\n
Jaffe also belongs to a book club at her synagogue on Manhattan\u2019s Upper West Side and serves on the synagogue\u2019s adult education committee. For more than a decade, she\u2019s volunteered several times a week as a docent at the New York Public Library\u2019s main branch on Fifth Avenue.<\/p>\n
\u201cLoneliness, it\u2019s not an issue,\u201d she said. \u201cI have enough to do within my capability.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, I followed Jaffe as she led visitors from Mexico, England, Pittsburgh, and New Jersey through the library\u2019s \u201cTreasures\u201d exhibit. She was a wealth of information about extraordinary objects such as a Gutenberg Bible from 1455 (one of the first books printed in Europe using movable type), Charles Dickens\u2019 writing desk, and an enormous folio of John James Audubon\u2019s \u201cThe Birds of America.\u201d She spoke without notes, articulately.<\/p>\n
When I asked about the future, Jaffe said she doesn\u2019t worry about what comes next. She just lives day to day.<\/p>\n
That change in perspective is common in later life. \u201cFocusing on the present and experiencing the here and now becomes more important to older adults,\u201d said Laura Carstensen, founding director of Stanford University\u2019s Center on Longevity, who has studied emotional changes that accompany aging for decades. \u201cAs does savoring positive things in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carstensen\u2019s research group was the first to show that older adults were more resilient emotionally during the covid-19 pandemic than young or middle-aged adults. \u201cOlder people are better able to cope with difficulties,\u201d she said. In part, this is because of skills and perspective gained over the course of a lifetime. And, in part, it\u2019s because \u201cwhen we see our future as shorter, it feels more manageable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jaffe certainly understands the value of facing forward and letting go of the past. Losing her husband, Gerald Jaffe, in 2005 after 63 years of marriage was hard, she admitted, but relinquishing her life and most of her belongings in New Jersey five years later was easy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was enough. We had done what we had wanted to do there. I was 88 at that point and so many people were gone. The world had changed,\u201d she told me. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel a sense of loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was so exciting for me, being in New York,\u201d she continued. \u201cEvery day you could do something \u2014 or nothing. This location couldn\u2019t be better. The building is safe and well maintained, with lots of staff. Everything is here, close by: a market, the pharmacy, restaurants, buses. In a house in New Jersey, I would be isolated. Here, I look out the window and I see people.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the future, who knows what that will hold? \u201cMy joke is I\u2019m going to be done in by a bicycle delivery person cutting through the pedestrian crosswalk,\u201d Jaffe said. Until that or something else happens, \u201cI live in a state of surprise. Every day is a new day. I don\u2019t take it for granted at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
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