Wind blowing ♪ Hopeful piano playing ♪ [John Heilman:] What’s it all about?

♪ Hopeful piano continues... ♪ Why am I here?

♪ Hopeful piano continues... ♪ The answer is unexplainable.

♪ Hopeful piano continues... ♪ I can show by my life what I think the answer is if they are willing to ask the question.

♪ Hopeful piano continues... ♪ [Suzanne Crawford:] We all should have a good life.

It may not be an expensive life, It could not be one that is shared very much, It’s just the differences that we explore.

[Jackie Stonnell:] At this point, you realize that there’s not a lot of advice that you can give.

You tell people to explore, to be curious about things, never just to take it for granted.

[Willa Jean Speegle: (with emphasis)] Live in the moment.

And let people know, if you love them, let them know, tell ’em you love them.

[Bob Remer:] You’re going to grow, and you should expect to continue to grow.

[Jackie Stonnell:] The choices that we make in life, are our choices, and you make some good ones, you make some bad ones, and then you learn from that.

♪ Hopeful piano continues... ♪ [Suzanne Crawford:] The biggest life lesson was to learn from my spouse that he was not going to be with us.

He got cancer.

He said, my cancer is gonna be continuous, and it’s going to cost us a bloody fortune to keep me alive, not to get me better, cause I can’t get better with this kind of cancer.

And he called the family together, he said, we’ve had a wonderful time together, and I anticipate for you a wonderful and developmental life ahead.

And with that he said, I’ll see you in another time.

And he died.

♪ Melancholic music ♪ And we learned from his going that we needed to be involved in everything around us, and give back to anything that we can possibly do.

♪ Melancholic music continues... ♪ [John Heilman:] I think everybody in their life, at some point, comes to a very, very painful crisis.

♪ Melancholic music continues... ♪ [Willa Jean Speegle:] Long, long ago, I said to people that when I got married, I wanted to marry somebody that was the same religion as I was.

But I did not know that I would be the one to change.

♪ Melancholic music continues... ♪ In the other faith I was in, it never occurred to me whether I was right or wrong.

We were as ingrained in that religion as we could be.

I said once to my dad, you know, Daddy, I’d like to study The Bible with you.

And he says, no, you’ll just interpret it to your own thing.

You know, that, of course, was not true.

♪ Melancholic music continues...♪ [John Heilman:] I had a naive belief that if I was a good guy, then my life should run smoothly.

And unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

I can’t direct this universe of people like the conductor of an orchestra.

But if that’s not so, then, what do I do?

What is in charge?

All my life I had felt that there is unity among all people, and, in fact, in all of creation.

I have seen this question of God.

Who is God?

Is there God?

How does all this stuff exist?

Can it coexist?

What truth is in it?

There’s all kinds of names for this way of knowing that is not the scientific method.

There are times when I just go out and look across the fields that are full of snow, and the mountains, and just say there is a bond between me and it.

♪ Hopeful music ♪ [Jackie Stonnell:] About six weeks after I graduated, I had been offered a scholarship to nursing school.

So, I went to Our Lady of the Lake Nursing School.

We went to a charity hospital that had over a thousand pediatric beds, and that was the first time I saw anybody die.

And that had a real impact on me.

It was a little boy.

I think when you go into nursing, or a helping field, it’s because you’re a different kind of person.

And, there’s this servant heart, which sounds silly to say, but there are people who have that.

Anything you can do to encourage somebody, and to make them better, and to help their life be better, that’s what we’re supposed to do.

But we need to reach out and encourage people.

[Suzanne Crawford:] What is good that we can do that will help others, not just the self.

[John Heilman:] Getting people to understand the importance of community, not making the individual unimportant, but having the individual see, hey, I am a part of a community, and I will benefit if the community benefits.

[Jackie Stonnell:] You don’t have to be somebody that everybody in the world knows.

You don’t have to be an Albert Einstein.

But you can be that little light in the corner.

[Bob Remer:] Don’t try and be an island out there because the feedback that that you’ll get is so important.

♪ Hopeful music continues...♪ [Jackie Stonnell:] As you get older, you’re not as active, and you don’t influence people like you used to.

And I did not want my retirement to mean nothing, that I’m through with life, through with living, through with people.

Each morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is ask God, what do you want me to do today?

Who do you want me to help?

So I still have a purpose.

It’s not as strong as it was, and some days I take a nap instead of doing my purpose.

But that’s the way life is.

And I’m eighty-eight years old, and I’ve worked since I was fifteen years old, and so I really feel like I can take a nap every so often.

♪ Hopeful music continues... ♪ [Suzanne Crawford:] We can understand, cherish, and maintain our time, but we should also be ahead.

[John Heilman:] Life is to be lived.

♪ Hopeful music continues... ♪ ♪ Hopeful music continues... ♪