Life, According to Mary Stewart,
Is All a Wonderful Circle.

Connections that bind come in all forms: friends, teachers, spouses, children, parents. Mary Stewart says they come to the forefront most when navigating life’s transitions.

Notes Mary, who now spends about 5 months of the year at Orchid Island, “None of us really knows how to navigate retirement and getting older. We’re all in a transitional phase.”

Once an art teacher in Baltimore, MD, she recently had an epiphany about the similarities between her former students and the Orchid Island community. “Middle-schoolers are newly learning how they can affect life and what they are capable of,” explains Mary. “By the eighth-grade transition, students start to realize they can make their own lives better by killing with kindness.”

And that’s how she sees life at Orchid Island. “Here, even if someone already knows other people, they are very open to…”