Angel spreads wings to enjoy life to fullest
Published: April 5, 2006
Angel Beckles is 90 and loves it.
“The best thing about being 90 is you can say anything you want, do anything you want and people think you’re senile,” she said, joking.
Clearly age hasn’t dulled the Jamaican-born immigrant’s sense of humor.
When she joined a church recently, she invited members to be ” ‘touched by an angel.’ Time is short and we only pass through once so I want to enjoy every moment I can,’ ” she said.
To ensure she’s physically ready for those moments, Beckles begins her day with push-ups, weightlifting and stretching. She maintains a gym membership but prefers to work out at home. Following the workout and some time reading the Bible, she stuffs fruit and vegetables into a juicer for a health tonic that she prepares several times a day.
“I was brought up on fresh vegetables and I don’t believe our bodies were made to eat processed foods,” she said.
Beckles, who came to this country 50 years ago with her late husband, who was Cuban, has five children, the precise number of offspring she says she asked God to deliver.
“I asked God for twins, a boy and a girl, and I got that, too,” she said.
Since retiring as a hospital nurse’s aide in 1962, Beckles has traveled much of the world. And while her travels have taken her to countries with an array of cultures, she says people are essentially the same everywhere.
” Every culture has good and bad people and in every culture you find people who are prejudiced against their race.”
Beckles felt the sting of prejudice from her own people growing up.
As an only child of an overprotective mother, Beckles was “dressed like doll” and told she was different from her friends, she said.
“My mother would say, ‘Look at you, don’t you see you’re different?’ ” she said. “But I couldn’t see the difference, I was just a child. And it made me feel left out from the other children.”
As a result, Beckles looks for commonalties rather than differences among the people she encounters.
“I love people,” she said.
“And I’ve found the same blood runs through all of us. I don’t see why we can’t all get along.”
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