Betty, at 99: My Pink Zone Poster Girl

What a magnetic, nearly 100-year-old friend taught me about vitality, not getting rusty, and staying open to life.

I met this extraordinary woman on a flight from Vancouver to Palm Springs last year — one of those encounters that feels anything but random. Her name is Betty, and from the moment I saw her down the aisle as I was waiting to board, I knew I needed to talk to her. As fate would have it, she was my seatmate.

A special window seat

She turns 100 on May 9th, and she embodies so many things I believe the Pink Zones represent: vitality, flexibility, curiosity, humour, and a zest for life that refuses to dim with age.

This year, when I realized she wouldn’t be in Palm Springs during my annual pilgrimage, I felt a real pang of disappointment. Our first meeting had felt so synchronistic — like something meant to repeat.

But life had a better idea. Instead of meeting in the desert, we planned a visit at her home in a neighbourhood close to mine near UBC in Vancouver.

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with Betty, and it was nothing short of magical.

She shared story after story, each one unfolding like a well-wrapped gift with delightful detours and returns (for good measure- a common theme with my Pink Zones women). Tales from different chapters of her life — told with animation, wit, and a sparkle that had me laughing out loud again and again. Her memory for details is sharp, her curiosity alive, and her flexibility — both physical and mental — remarkable. I’ll have to include a video clip so you can witness this yourself. Look at those legs! She moves through the world with grace, openness, and a twinkle that feels utterly ageless.

A Love Story captured for the ages.

One of the most moving moments came when Betty shared a book her incredible daughter, Linda, created. She told me about this first on the plane. Linda (also an amazing artist) had discovered a collection of love letters written by Betty’s husband, Jack, during their long-distance relationship that began in 1945, during World War II.

Jack was stationed in Seattle, working at Boeing with the riveters, and the letters he wrote to Betty are nothing short of extraordinary.

Linda creatively and lovingly compiled them into a book—pairing the letters with photographs and Betty’s reflections—creating a living archive of romance, devotion, and emotional depth. The letters revealed insights into Jack’s inner world and emotional dimensions of him that even Linda, as his daughter, had never fully known.

To flip through this book is to step into another era and yet feel something completely timeless.

It’s a window into the heart of a man who was love-struck, emotionally intelligent, deeply connected, and beautifully expressive—qualities that feel both rare and urgently relevant today. Jack would be 107 now. (He passed away at 92.) And yet, through his words, his presence is vivid, tender, and unmistakably alive.

Agility of Body and Mind

I’d just come from a yoga class when I arrived, which made me wonder — almost absently — whether Betty had ever practiced yoga. Living in Vancouver, how could she not have? Side bar: Honestly, it’s a grievance worth of Festivus- you can’t throw a stone without hitting a hot yoga studio or get hit by a walker by carelessly swinging around their rolled-up mat (me, admittedly). Here is evidence that the detours and returns are contagious.

But I didn’t even get the question out about yoga.

As soon as we sat down, Betty casually lifted her legs into what looked very much like eagle pose (Garudasana in Sanskrit) — effortless, playful, entirely unselfconscious. As she moved from one story to another, her legs and feet seemed to dance along with her words, circling and repositioning as she changed gears.

It wasn’t performative; it was simply how she moved. I was frankly stunned. When we first met, I sat with her for almost 3 hours as we were immobilized on the plane, I never got to see this side of her paired with her stories!

Her body expressed the same vitality her stories carried — alive, responsive, full of personality. I found myself thinking, I need instruction from her. Forget the studio — I wanted Betty yoga.

None of it felt put on. It was embodied storytelling — a choreography of gestures matching narrative. And I couldn’t help wondering: if I had asked her to show me what she could really do, what might I have witnessed?

At 99, Betty is so agile, animated, and alive that I caught myself thinking:

If she were a teenager today, someone might try to medicate that kind of energy.

No Ritalin or Vyvanse for Betty. Just grace, openness, and an ageless twinkle.

This is precisely the vitality the Pink Zones seeks to understand.

What Struck Me Most

There’s much more I’ll eventually share about Betty — stories and reflections that will make their way into my book — but a few moments stood out. One of her strongest early memories is of being punished by a grade-school teacher in a way wildly out of proportion to the “crime”: her hands struck brutally with a ruler. It was her first recognition of antisemitism — the moment she realized she was Jewish, and the first time she became self-conscious of an identity that marked her as “other.” She remembers it as a clear before-and-after in her young life.

Hearing her describe this moment during Hanukkah — a holiday centred on resilience, identity, and the persistence of light — made her story land with even greater weight.

She also shared many stories about her twin brother, Sid, and the younger set of twin boys born two years later — all four of them lined up in a perfect row in the photo below.

The afternoon flowed from romance to resilience to laughter to memory — each reinforcing what I know to be true about the Pink Zones:

connection matters, love sustains, and staying emotionally open may be one of the greatest longevity practices of all.

And then there were the stories that had me laughing until my cheeks hurt.

One theme kept appearing: Betty meets gentlemen who are completely smitten with astonishing regularity. She shared at least four examples — each with such zest (with Linda pitching in to add corroborating and humorous details for good measure) that I found myself questioning my own approach as a single woman stubbornly avoiding online dating, holding the notion that I could meet someone by happenstance. Perhaps I’m living in the wrong Vancouver neighbourhood… or simply 45 years too young?

A Living Pink Zone

Spending time with Betty deepened my understanding of the Pink Zones in a way no research paper ever could.

She doesn’t talk about vitality, she lives it.

She doesn’t cling to youth; she expands into life.

One of her favourite phrases is “Don’t get rusty.”

Her presence reminds me that aging need not mean shrinking. It can mean more playfulness. More magnetism. More romance. More curiosity. More connection.

And this is only the beginning.

There are many more stories and pieces of wisdom to come from Betty, and I look forward to sharing them.

Stay tuned. 💗