Heartfelt Reflections: MaryAnn Riley on Legacy, Love, and Letting Go

In one of the most emotional and intimate recordings of The Lady in Red series, MaryAnn Riley opens her heart in this powerful conversation about legacy, faith, illness, and the final preparations for her life’s work. Speaking candidly with her collaborator, Eric, MaryAnn reflects on her physical struggles, her enduring sense of purpose, and the meaningful objects and memories she's sorting through in her home to donate to the community she has long served.

As she shares thoughts on the upcoming book, her faith, and her love for others, MaryAnn offers wisdom rooted in decades of service, humility, and a deep desire to uplift future generations. From her concerns about survival skills in younger people to her memories of meaningful relationships and heartfelt gratitude for being chosen as the subject of this project, MaryAnn’s voice is full of grace, vulnerability, and clarity.

This bonus episode is more than a behind-the-scenes moment—it is a testament to a life well-lived, and a woman who, even in the face of uncertainty, continues to give, teach, and inspire. Listeners will be left with a renewed sense of what really matters: love, respect, and the legacy we leave behind.

Transcript

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A part of my life, my heart, and my mind, and I feel, but everybody says, but you've given so much to them. I guess I just don't feel like that because we converse, and we've exchanged ideas, and all of this too. So, as I said, I know you, I'm taking an evening of yours here right again, after spending all that time with me yesterday. I'm sure that you're exhausted after all of this. No, because I'm going to go back and work on your dedication, and then I'm going to put together my strategy for making calls tomorrow. So, my goal is that's why I wanted to get this draft out, is now my next is-I'll spend tomorrow reading this, so I'm going to be here by myself. Perfect, and then my goal is, by this weekend, we've got our strategy for where we're going to place the pictures, and I've got a workable draft, and I'm going to do some pre-edits before the final edit, but I want to-I want to get it into production, and work on your cover, and the outside, and then even the inside of how the book's going to look. So, once I get that together, I'm hoping, if the Lord works, by Tuesday, I can upload it to Amazon, so they can send me a hard copy of the draft with the cover and the book. And then we still-I still need a thorough editing of the grammar and center structure. Very, very much. You know, I've got neuropathy from all of this in my hands. The medicines that they've been giving me have just played havoc with my body. And, as I say, I can feel my kidneys are not functioning as they really should be, but I'm persisting on drinking all my liquids and all that, too, and trying to walk and do all this. And, as I told yesterday, I walked from here down to the nurse's station and back, which was an accomplishment, without stopping, with my walker. So, I feel that maybe, I don't know how things are going to work out. Prove them wrong. Huh? Prove them wrong. Yeah. Live for another 10 or 20 years. Well, that's what everybody says. They say, you know, just prove them all wrong. But these are things, I said, that it's not in my hands right now. I said, I'm prepared for whatever anybody wants to do. You know, I said, at first, I was very upset. Thinking that Wayne's going to have to take care of me at home, but I've resigned to that. And there's some things that I want to do at home that I know they're at. And I'm frustrating him, because I'm trying to tell him where these things are. And he's frustrated because he can't find them. And, you know, he's moved things since I've been home. So, when you walk through the house, you can go through and , okay, there, there, there, there, and there. And, I have a box out there that I'm working on for the pregnancy center. I have a box for the animal shelter. I have a box for the Blue Star Mothers. I have, you know, and I'm designating all these things to go to various organizations that I have been working with all these years. And so, therefore, I think that once I get those things out of the house, and he didn't come up tonight because I have friends over, uh, taking things out of the house. That he's working with eBay and a flea market. We got a lot of things from ours that I got married with 61 years ago. The Pyrex Corningware and all that. I got sets of those. You know what they're going for now? And so, they're taking all of these things and they're packing all that stuff up. And, make sure you tell them that Wayne also, and yourself, you know that you can just take a picture of those and you can sell them directly on Facebook through the marketplace. It's really quick. I know. But, here again, he doesn't need to battle with that. I would rather let these friends that have offered to do all of these things. And then, we have a couple sheds that have some things in it. And, uh, that's something that I should look at. What you would need for your school or your office or anything like that too. If you need anything like office supplies or anything, I think I still have some stuff like that in our storage units. You just let us know. We'll come through. And so, if you need something, I'm going to have Anita and Farron go through those things. And, pack some boxes up. If they come in with a box, don't be surprised. If you can't use them, throw them away. Oh, no. I'm not going to throw them away to be a part of your historical museum. Oh, no. They've been here probably 40 years. But, I mean, you know, I've got so many things in, so many of the stuff. And I said, that was my goal for this summer. Was to clean out those sheds and dispose of all those things so that we could get ready to retire to something else. And, of course, plans didn't come out that way. And, as we said, the best-laid plans are often changed by who knows what. I don't know, whatever. And so, these are some of the things that I want to do. But, we'll keep you in mind and do these things. And, so I'm trying to clean out my house. But, right now, my house is an absolute disaster. Because, I had started some of this downsizing and sorting things and so forth. And, so I told Wayne, I said, 'We've got to get that straightened up before anybody comes in there then.' So that it won't be an embarrassment to you. Well, one thing I'm asking you for now is all of the pictures, things that can be historical in context. I promise you, I will reserve those so that they will see your achievements. I'm going to digitize everything that, all of your pictures. And, I have the website. We're going to create 'The Lady in Red.' We already got the YouTube and all that. But, I'm going to take those pictures and I'm going to preserve that. And, I'm going to always keep that domain. So, when the book comes out, they'll be able to go to the Lady in Red and see all of your pictures. And, the stories with the pictures along with your podcast. Okay. Now, you know we were talking last night about this book. Yes. Teddy Daniels is the author. Teddy Daniels. Teddy Daniels, right. I've been reading it off and on today in between people. So, I'm only up to like, I think, there's only 159 pages in it. So, it's not really long. But, he's covering many of the things you and I talked about. And, how repetition. And, this book does a lot of repetition. You know, so that people... and he said, you may think something. That you may be able to kill somebody. But, it doesn't work out that way. It has to be a mindset. And he talks a lot about mindsets in this book. And he repeats a lot of the same. It's a very quick reading book. You could read it probably. I'm because of my interruption. It's taking me a couple of hours to just go through some of this. But you could probably read it in two or three hours at a time. And but he's talking about some of the very things you and I talked about yesterday. Of how we have to be able to communicate. And he talks about how the 500, 000 people are going to be killed as the planes fall out of the sky. And how all the hospitals are going to be. And the attack is going to happen at night. And, so that everybody is going to be in complete darkness. And, this is where the 365 days darkness comes. Well, it was very interesting. Just before you came in here. I was talking to the CNA. She's Russian. And, she was asking me about Russia. And, Taiwan. And, all of these others. And, China. And, so we were having this conversation when we walked in. And, she was, she says, what do you think about this? I say, I think there's going to be a revolution. And, we also know about this electrical pulse that's above the clouds that are going to come in. And, nobody will know. There will not be a mushroom cloud. There will not be anything else. It will all just like that. And, it's going to happen immediately. Your car. And, he tells it here. If you're driving down the highway. How to, all the tips I'm trying to get. Your car's going to stop immediately. And, you're going to have to try to get to the edge. And, get away from that car. So that, because there's going to be crashes and all that other. And, he's going to tell you how to plant a garden. So that, you're going to have vegetables that will be protected. Your area will be protected. And, all that other. You'll find this book to be very interesting if you get it. And, you know. On top of that. You know why EMP is preferred. Is because you don't destroy the people. The buildings. You do the infrastructure. And, it's less destructive than. Because you shoot nuclear bombs. Then, the earth is uninhabitable. And, you're right. I believe that. I'm definitely going to read that book. Because, I believe that that's the cleanest way. To do. That's right. This is true. And, they said. When you think about an atomic bomb, it hits a city or a neighborhood or something like this. He said, we're talking about countries. Continents. He said, at a time. And, this guy is. He was wounded in the military a couple of times. He saved his group. And, he was. They didn't expect him to live. But, he drew the fire away from them. And, he got shot several times. And, he. He says, 'I know what's happening.' He says, 'I've been to all these places.' He's been in Afghanistan and many of these other places. He was shot in Afghanistan. And, he said that we have. Most people are completely unaware of how to survive. And, this is the very thing that we were talking about. And, it's not that you know how to maybe cook a hamburger or do anything. Or, save reserve food. No. But, you have to have it in your mind how to survive. Not. And, he said. And, when this happens at night. And, you wake up. And, there's complete darkness. Do you know in your house right now where your flashlight is? Do you know where all of these things are? That you could walk through your house without any light. And, be able to see. Because, when we're completed, there's not going to be a light from outside. There's not. Unless, there may be a moon. And, they said. They would probably pick a moonless night. Or, a stormy night or something like that too. To do these very same things. To take care of the electrical thing. But, I think that you would really. You would draw from this. You are one person that I think of, Eric. That would get probably even more than I'm getting out of this book. Because, these are some of the very things that you and I have been talking about. With the young generation. And, we were talking about how the younger generation would never be able to survive any of this. They have no survival skills. What so ever. At least, I feel like I have some. You maybe have some. You may have some skills from what you've learned as an adult. But, these young children. These young people have never been taught any survival skills. Let alone a mindset. And, we were talking about this. That a friend of mine is right now in Virginia. And, he said. Her family out there are in different rooms on their computers playing a game. The same game, but no communication. Her four grandsons, her son, and she's out there visiting them. She says, I have no communication with them. They're all behind closed doors. And this is what's happening with our young people. And so, they have no survival skills. And, these are some of the things that we talked about. Why did we have home economics? We were talking about what happened to home economics and woodworking and all that in high school that we had in school. Because we had a need for it. And, this is the very thing that he's talking about here. We're going to have a need for those very same skills that we have taken away because we've gone to complete technology. And so, I mean these are things that. I'm wasting all of your time here. And, usually this is the evening of a holiday and you guys should be home with your families. I'm sorry. I don't know who this is. Oh, it's Anita. I'll call her back later. Let me just call her. Let her know. I'll call her back. But, these are. No. Class. No. No. As it happens, when you're going, you can't see. Hi, can I call you back in a few minutes? I've got company right now, okay? Okay, fine. Thank you. Bye-bye. She's one of the women who sat at the house working with Wayne. One thing I did want to tell you when you looked through there, I added a section from quotes from Hope Brinkley, because I found her interview she did about 30 minutes about a relationship with you, so I did a section. Do you want to hear her number? Do you have her number? I think I have her on Facebook. I think I might have her number, but I added a whole section. You know, she just lost her election. I'm sorry, but that's okay. I told her, I said, that's okay. I said, it was either meant to be or not. And I said, you didn't really need to be. You know, you've got enough going on. Let me just. Let's get this started here. She's got her own business now, so. Okay. Yes, I have several quotes in there you'll see from her, from that initial interview that she did. I forgot about all those things. Way back when, you're going to have to remind me of all that. Yeah, it's on your, I'll leave you the links to them. So when we first started this documentary project, I had politicians from Great Belgium, Hope Blakely, they came to the center and we recorded them talking about you. And it was about five or six recordings. So I have those on your, on YouTube. Of all the people that you know, and all these others, and all the wonderful people in this world, how you would pick a lonely person like me to do something like this, to make me the center of your book. I'm really honored. This is your book, this is your story, your life that we are going to hopefully use as an example for others to follow. But of all the people in this world, though, Jack, I'm only one of how many billions of people. And for Eric to pick me out, it's quite an honor to have him do this. And I'm certainly not nearly as, I should say, exposed to things as so many other people or have achieved as much as so many other people in this world. But just to take a lonely person like me and to make me a star in a book, it's, I'm honored to no end. And I hope that in my corner of the world, I will, uh, include other people and that they will learn from some of my experiences, some of the people that I've talked to that I've come in contact with, and who knows what doors will open for some of these other people. And to let some of the people know that there are so many good people in this world, and we are getting such a bad look at people, that we're getting a negativism in our country that is really too bad. And what we need to do is say, this is an H-A-T-E, we need L-O-V-E. And so, this is what we need to do a little bit more of that, and respect for one another. And this is part of the problem. So many of these people do not even have respect for themselves. And this is what we have to start working on. And I'm working on some of my little CNAs here, and they are so sweet and so kind. And I said, Angie Horton came up and gave me a box of candy the other day. And I said, could I share these? And she said, yeah. So any of the little CNAs come in, you did such a good job. Take a piece of candy, that's my favorite. Good. You get one as a little reward. And they said, you know, you are so different. You're in here with all of this and you know what you're doing. And she says, and yet some of the people don't even bother. They don't grunt. They don't say anything. And she said, and you're willing to share your candy with us. And I said, I'm willing to share my life. I'm doing that right now. So, yeah, but I do want to thank you all tonight. And if you don't have any questions, I want you to go home with your families and you have an enjoyable day tomorrow. Don't worry about this. You've got enough done. Take it as it is, darling. And whatever you do, you've got my blessings, please. I just don't know how to thank you so much for coming into my life and exposing me to the world and the world to me. We've had some good conversations. I think we've helped each other grow and it'll be the day that I'll say welcome home Eric Whiteside. You have done a fantastic job. Now I'm worried about Jamaica. Have you heard anything about Jamaica? Yes. I'm worried about that. They're having a big, big hurricane down there. Yeah, my mother-in-law-the good thing about their location is she's in the, the mountains, um, Warsaw and the last time they had it in 86, it just hit this, uh, surrounding, uh, um, areas in the mountain areas were, um, protected. That's one of the.