This year, Anne Sinclair will turn 90 and she’s just received the King’s Service Medal for her 40 years of ongoing volunteering at the Cancer Society. She talks to Capsule about the power of purpose, how her life began at 40 and why helping people is the antidote to feeling overwhelmed about the world.
After more than 40 years of volunteering for the Cancer Society, Anne Sinclair knows more than most about the power of community – and the power of purpose. At age 89, Anne has just received the King’s Service Medal in the New Year’s Honours for her phenomenal volunteering career, which started in her late 40s.
“Life began for me at 40,” says Anne. “When I was younger, you went to school, you left school, you got married and you had children. By and large, that was all over and done with by the time you met your 30thyear. During that time, you’d learned and retained a lot about life’s foibles, and they stay with you. So, at 40, you can cope better with what life throws at you – because you’ve had experience.”
At 48, Anne retired from paid work to manage the building of her house with her second husband. But after that was completed, she needed another challenge. Her husband happened to attend a fundraising event for the Cancer Society, where he mentioned to the president that his wife was “at a loose end”. She had watched many of her contemporaries retire and then “stagnate”, as she says, and she knew retirement wasn’t for her.
It was suggested that Anne become a volunteer for the Cancer Society – and that is where she has become an integral part of the society, both as a volunteer and as a paid employee. It was only when she reached 75 that she retired from the paid part because she needed more flexibility to be at home with her husband who was in the final months of dementia. But her volunteering work has continued for over four decades.
“The years went by very happily,” she says. “I was – and still am – a people person. I like people very much, no matter what circumstances they’re in. I’m told I have a good listening ear; I know that I have a good talking voice!”
In her volunteering role, Anne has helped with fundraising, driving people to appointments, coordinating volunteers and supporting those undergoing treatment at the Domain Lodge – where people from out of Auckland stay during their treatment. Some of them are there for months, some of them receive palliative care for just a week. It is a job that comes with a very large dose of perspective about what really matters in life, she says.
“It’s a privilege to enter into a stranger’s life and share the awful realisation of what is before them,” she says. “They didn’t ask to get this disease, but they’ve got it. And the stoicism and the courage of so many people never ceases to amaze me. If we can make that journey easier for them, in any way, then we should do it. And by doing that, we are helping the world.”
Helping others is the best way to tackle the sense of overwhelm that can come with living in a chaotic world, Anne believes. “There is great pleasure in knowing that in some small way, or sometimes in big ways, I can help people. It’s a privilege for us to have been born… and because of this privilege, we should give something back to the world.”
Anne says that she comes from “hardy Scottish stock” and most of her family lived well into their 90s, apart from her father who died of cancer in his early 60s. Her mother had cancer in her early 80s, had surgery and then lived until 97. “We’re a pretty determined people,” she laughs. “We enjoy life, and we’re hard workers.”
Anne’s two adult daughters have both continued with this purpose-driven work; her eldest has always worked ‘with women and for women’, and her youngest has been the carer for her tetraplegic partner for 40 years. “That is a huge task, and a loving task,” she says. “We’re a family of ‘get up and get into it.’”
Anne is considering the idea of maybe retiring this year – she’ll be 90 in May – but she’s playing it by ear. She retired from driving for Meals on Wheels last year as well but also loved that time in the community; as well as dealing with the hard reality that for a lot of the elderly people she was delivering meals to, she was the only person they saw all week.
“Helping other people is what life is all about,” she says. “I’m coming to the end of my life – I’m sensible about that, but I don’t feel my age. But when my time comes – and I don’t want to sound all ‘here she goes’ – I truly believe I have done a good job. And for the moment, I still think I’m doing a good job. I’ll think about 90, but maybe 95 might be all right as well!”
If you or someone you know has cancer and would like to talk, contact Cancer Society’s 0800 CANCER (226 237). If you’d like to support the Cancer Society, visitwww.cancer.org.nz/donate-now/
