L-R: Marion Leyland, William Jesse, Carole Lulham, David Wende, Elaine GambleSupplied
Canada’s population is rapidly aging. The Globe and Mail’s Aging Well series explores the country’s longevity economy, how people are living healthier and happier lives as they age and how to support older adults.
Travel. Pursuing hobbies. Volunteering. Keeping fit. Dealing with health issues. Losing loved ones. Retirement is a mix of ups and downs, but for most, it’s largely about slowing down to enjoy life beyond work.
For the past three years, The Globe and Mail has been profiling Canadians about their retirements in our Tales from the Golden Age feature. We checked in with five of these retirees to see how they’ve been enjoying life now that they’re further along in retirement. Here are their stories:
Marion Leyland.Supplied
Marion Leyland, 91, No fixed address
Marion Leyland was 88 when she realized she might outlive her money, so she sold her home and nearly all her belongings and became a nomad.
“Best move I ever made,” says the retired beauty industry executive in a recent interview from her two-bedroom rental apartment in Manzanillo, a Mexican port city that’s her home base this fall and winter. “I’m absolutely free as a bird; no responsibilities.”
Since we last spoke with her in late 2023, Ms. Leyland has spent winters in Mexico (where she and her late husband used to go every year) and summers in Ontario, renting a different apartment each time, sometimes in a different city depending on what she wants her active lifestyle to look like.
The first two summers were spent in Ottawa, followed by Georgian Bay this past summer. She has rented a townhouse in Collingwood for six months next summer.
“There’s an excitement to my life because I don’t have a home,” she says. “It’s a new place each season and I also get to decide ‘Do I want to spend it all in one place, or should I break it up into different places?’”
Ms. Leyland misses her family, including three daughters, eight grandkids and nine great-grandkids, but says they’re busy with their own lives and scattered across Ontario, the United States and Britain. Plus, she sees most of them in the spring and summer in Ontario, or they visit her in Mexico in the winter.
Ms. Leyland says she now has more friends there than she does in Canada – and the days are non-stop.
“My social calendar in Mexico is filled all the time: happy hours, lunches, dinners, boat rides, day trips and some shopping,” she says.
The self-taught artist also spends time painting.
She’s in good health, which her doctor attributes to her time in Mexico during the winter, eating fresh fruits, vegetables and seafood as well as her ability to walk and swim every day. She has a similar lifestyle in Canada.
Ms. Leyland estimates she saves $12,000 to $15,000 a year by living in short-term rentals compared with when she owned a home in Orillia, Ont., and rented in Mexico during the winter.
“I have more money today than I had four years ago, and I’ve been living like a queen,” she says. “I have no financial concerns at all.”
William Jesse (and Pearl, his cat).Supplied
William Jesse, 80, Victoria
William Jesse has stayed active since he retired more than 30 years ago from a career in the aviation industry, taking on casual work as a movie extra, a magician and a funeral home assistant. But keeping busy has been more challenging since The Globe last spoke to him in late 2022, because of an issue with his right knee.
“The meniscus in my knee is gone. It’s bone on bone. It’s very brutal,” says Mr. Jesse, who, like thousands of seniors across Canada, is on a waiting list for a knee replacement. “I think the earliest is going to be April.”
He’s still walking, but it’s through a lot of pain, and he’s anxious to put the operation and months of rehab behind him so he can get back to his normal activities without wincing. One of those includes driving around the city in the 1949 Chevrolet pickup truck he restored – another of his hobbies.
“I sort of miss it. I go to the garage and talk to it every now and then,” he says with a laugh. “I considered selling it, but it’s been with me for 26 years now. It’d be like losing a child.”
As a widower with no family nearby, Mr. Jesse will need to find hired help moving around the house while he recovers.
Thankfully, he will continue to have some good company at home: After losing his cat Rey to cancer in February, which Mr. Jesse says “rocked” him because the cat was his companion after his wife died nine years ago, he adopted a six-year-old calico called Pearl.
“She’s very vocal and affectionate. She loves everybody. I don’t know why she was put on the market,” he says. “I love Pearl dearly and realized how empty and depressing my life was after Rey died and I was alone.”
Mr. Jesse recommends that anyone living alone adopt an animal to keep them company.
“If I didn’t have my cat, life would be possibly worse,” he says. “For any senior living alone, having an animal in the house is a game-changer. Someone to talk to. And there is nothing wrong with adopting a senior animal; it gives them a second chance.”
David Wende.Supplied
David Wende, 70, Parksville, B.C.
After decades working 60-plus hours a week as a Vancouver lawyer, David Wende was ready for a slower, more fulfilling lifestyle that includes travel, woodworking, staying fit and enjoying the company of friends and family.
“We enjoy a better lifestyle today than when we were working. We have a lot more fun,” says Mr. Wende, who semi-retired in 2014 and fully retired in 2018.
Money isn’t a concern for Mr. Wende and his wife, who also plan to leave a “significant legacy” to their two children. They also spend much less now that they’re not working, eat better and exercise daily to keep their minds and bodies fit.
Since we last spoke to him in the summer of 2022, the former litigator has been spending more of his free time giving back to others who haven’t been as fortunate. He volunteers with Access Pro Bono, providing free legal services to low-income families, and uses his honorary chartered professional accountant designation to prepare tax returns for low-income families through a program sponsored by the Canada Revenue Agency.
“I have this skillset, why should it go unused when I can do some good with it?” Mr. Wende says.
More recently, he started doing pro bono work with palliative care social workers, writing wills, powers of attorney and health care representation documents for the dying. He also set up a wills and estate clinic through the Society of Organized Services to serve seniors and low-income families.
While there are a lot of wealthy people in his community, “there’s an enormous amount of poverty that is hiding in plain sight. And I decided I was going to help these people,” Mr. Wende says.
He gets emotional about the volunteer work and thinking about how it has come full circle.
“I guess it’s because, as a lawyer, I was a weapon. I was a defence lawyer paid by insurance companies and the largest of accounting firms and engineering firms in this country to make sure that when they were sued, they paid as little as possible,” Mr. Wende says. “So I’m on what I call a voyage of atonement.”
Carole Lulham.Kelly Lawson/Supplied
Carole Lulham, 69, Saint John
The first two years of Carole Lulham’s retirement were spent in treatment for breast cancer, a diagnosis she received shortly after leaving work in 2016. Since The Globe last spoke to her in the summer of 2022, Ms. Lulham has remained cancer-free and is embracing her new lease on life.
“You always have this potential sword hanging over your head that the cancer might come back. But you just have to live your life the best you can,” she says.
Ms. Lulham is fulfilling her bucket list with travel and time with her growing family. She has also successfully reinvented herself as a mixed-media artist, a major departure from her 40-year career as an agronomist and agricultural marketing manager.
What started as a passion for mosaic art has turned into a calling that includes not only increasing sales of her own pieces but also working as an instructor.
“I get a lot of joy showing people different creative outlets that they might not have thought of before,” Ms. Lulham says.
She also volunteers as treasurer at a small arts organization and works as a facilitator at various community arts events across New Brunswick.
Her retirement also includes spending time with her family in New Brunswick, including an eight-year-old granddaughter, as well as a one-year-old grandson in England.
Ms. Lulham is also part of a dragon-boat team, although she’s been out of the boat this past season while waiting for a knee replacement.
The rising cost of living has led her to be more careful with spending in recent years, especially since she doesn’t have a corporate or government pension to rely on.
“I really have to look closely at how I budget and make choices,” says Ms. Lulham, whose retirement nest egg includes a registered retirement savings plan, tax-free savings account and locked-in retirement savings account she contributed to during her working years.
She did gain a financial advantage after moving in 2018 from Calgary to New Brunswick, where house prices are lower.
Ms. Lulham also earns income from her art through sales, grants and teaching, which she says helps cover the costs of her art supplies and travels.
“I’m loving retirement,” she says. “Like so many people, I worked hard, with little flexibility, for many years. And as a mom and a woman, I spent a lot of time looking after everyone else’s needs. I’m enjoying doing more things on my own time. I’m truly blessed.”
Elaine Gamble.Supplied
Elaine Gamble, 58, London, Ont.
Elaine Gamble was more than two years into retirement when she got a call from her former employer asking if she would be interested in returning for a couple of weeks to help out.
Ms. Gamble, who retired at 55 after what she described as an “all-consuming” job in corporate communications at a local college, expected it to be a short-term gig and a chance to reconnect with her colleagues.
Two weeks extended into a couple of months, and eventually Ms. Gamble found herself back in the same full-time job she had left years earlier.
“I’m back with a fresh perspective and a renewed appreciation for the work that still inspires me,” she says.
It’s a big change from when we last spoke to her in early 2024, a year after she retired.
When she left the work force behind, Ms. Gamble thought of her parents, who died in their mid-to-late 60s, and of all the things she wanted to do in life, such as travel and spend more time on hobbies like photography.
“I loved the freedom of being retired and I travelled a lot,” says Ms. Gamble, who visited 22 countries in those 2.5 years. She also enrolled in online courses and took up yoga and pickleball.
“But what I was finding, because my career had defined me for such a long time, was that I was really mourning my job,” she says. “I guess I wasn’t feeling as useful in retirement.”
When she got the call about the short-term contract earlier this year, Ms. Gamble expected to work, then head back into retirement. But she was asked to stick around and eventually help the organization hire and onboard a new director of communications, her former role, which had become vacant again.
“By the end of the summer, I wanted the job back myself,” she says with a laugh.
“I found I was really enjoying the people I was working with and the sense of satisfaction I had from doing the job in a way that I wasn’t when I left,” she says.
Ms. Gamble doesn’t regret her retirement stint because of what she learned about herself.
“I discovered that I still have a great amount of satisfaction in doing my job and it gives me a sense of purpose in a way that I hadn’t found in retirement,” she says.
She’s also approaching work differently this time.
“I know now that my job doesn’t have to define who I am,” she says. “And, the next time I retire, I’ll be more ready to find a new sense of purpose.”
She’s also not giving up her travels, with at least five trips planned over the next few years to reach her goal of visiting 50 countries before she turns 60.
