Describe an elderly person you admire

The elderly person I admire is my grandmother on my father's side. She's eighty-six now and still lives alone, which is the part everyone in the family argues about. I've known her all my life, but we became close after my grandfather died about eight years ago. I stayed with her that summer because everyone assumed she'd need looking after. She didn't, particularly. What she needed was someone to be in the house. What is she like? Stubborn, first of all — she'd say the same thing, and she'd say it proudly. She still cooks every meal from scratch, still walks to the market rather than ordering anything, and she has strong opinions about people who don't. She's also funnier than anyone gives her credit for. Most of her jokes are at her own expense. Why do I admire her? Not for the obvious reason, which would be that she's tough. Plenty of people are tough. What I admire is that she never once made her grief everyone else's problem. She was clearly devastated when my grandfather died, but she didn't perform it, and she didn't disappear either. She just kept the house running and let people come to her. I think about that a lot, actually. Being reliable when things go wrong is harder than being impressive when they go right.