Meet Teresa & Kristina

Teresa likes to say she’s 60 but feels the same as she did at 16. “Getting older is mandatory,” she says. “Maturing is optional.”

Two years ago, Teresa wasn’t sure she’d see 60. After years living steps from the beach in Lincoln City, she spent seven months in hospitals with pneumonia and respiratory failure. Doctors told her family she was dying, and they cleared out her apartment. She survived, but she couldn’t leave the hospital without a lease and an accessible place to live. With help from her kids, who wanted her closer to them, she started calling apartment communities. Broadleaf Arbor had an accessible unit available, and she moved into the community in June of 2024.

Teresa has lived with bipolar disorder for years, and new places and new faces don’t come easily. At Broadleaf Arbor, she can keep to herself in her apartment when she needs to, but the regular calendar of classes and events from EngAGE, Broadleaf Arbor’s resident services provider, gives her a reason to come back out, even on days she’d rather stay in. Seeing the same neighbors again and again has made it easier to build friendships she feels comfortable with. “Living here has been a godsend in a lot of ways,” she says.

Her best friend, Kristina, moved in around the same time after a year and a half living with her sister, who found Broadleaf Arbor for her. Neither remembers exactly how their friendship started. One day, they were simply friends.

Now they’re rarely apart. Both have black cats: Teresa’s Boo, an 18-pound Maine coon who likes to ambush visitors, and Kristina’s Sabrina, adopted on Halloween night. They tend side-by-side garden plots and work in each other’s beds. Last year, Teresa grew so much lettuce that she filled grocery bags and handed them out to neighbors. This year, they’re planting herbs in Kristina’s longer plot and trying again for full-sized pumpkins after last year’s crop came up tiny.

They also anchor a group of six or seven neighbors who share dinners, usually at Teresa’s place because her table seats more people. They baked in the community kitchen before Christmas and gave away cookie dough as gifts. On a warm Easter Sunday, they played Yahtzee on the patio from 11 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. while neighbors drifted in and out to talk and connect.

Kristina says the biggest change is in herself. “I’m not as shy as I used to be,” she says. Teresa has watched her grow more independent. She taught Kristina to cook, and now Kristina plans dinners on her own. When Teresa relied on a manual wheelchair that strained her injured forearms, Kristina pushed her to events and ran to the store for her. They keep keys to each other’s apartments, and they have one firm rule: they’re never allowed to have a bad day on the same day.

Since her illness, Teresa has wondered why she survived when others didn’t. “I’ve been searching for, ‘Why am I here? What’s the reason?’ I think this has helped me feel like I have a reason,” she says. For Teresa, that reason is the people around her—getting them out of their apartments, bringing them together, and helping them feel good about themselves.

Teresa is working toward getting out of her wheelchair so she and Kristina can take walks together. Kristina’s answer about what’s next is simpler: “Just life.”