Lil and her partner Hugh share an elegant home overlooking Gallagher's Golf Course with a view of Layer Cake Mountain, which Lil has scaled and she hikes regularly with her buddies. Now coming up on age 70, Lil is as active and fit as someone decades younger with a passion for golf and as well as hiking. She plays 3 times a week and says: "I would rather tell you my age than my handicap. But I'm always happy if I can break 100." In winter she snow shoes and cross-country skis.

Having just returned from a cruise Lil says it's her last. There is just too much focus on food and inactivity. Her idea of a great holiday is finding challenging places to hike that she will pursue with a female friend in September when they travel to Munich, Vienna and Prague and hike the Bavarian Alps. Her hiking dream is to travel to Peru and scale Machu Picchu, an Inca monument tucked away between two Andean peaks, a green paradise carved into its natural surroundings at 7000 feet above sea level.

Lil maintains her fitness and vitality pursuing fun activities like belly dancing and does Pilates twice a week. She feels she has 10 years in which to pursue her dreams requiring physical stamina but has not neglected mental exercise. If she has a philosophy for a happy life in retirement it is:

"I feel you have to exercise your mind as well as your body. The key is to find a new passion and pursue it with gusto."

An avid reader, Lil took up writing through the Society for Learning in Retirement (SLR) and hopes to write a book of anecdotes from her life as a coroner. She is also mastering bridge and learning Spanish. She is able to pursue these activities right at home in Gallagher's Canyon, where a full time activity coordinator is employed. Through SLR she conducted a course of study on the role of the coroner that was enthusiastically met by SLR members who filled the enrollment on the first day of registration.

Early in retirement Lil began making photo albums from the family photo collection; thinking this is what one does in retirement. She quickly realized that wasn't her cup of tea and solved the problem by sorting them to share with her daughters.

The key to happiness in retirement years, says Lil, is to "do things you want to do, not things you feel you have to do." Getting closer to family is also a priority and is possible without the demands of work.

BC Coroners Service - What is a Coroner?

A Coroner is a medical-legal death investigator appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council upon the recommendation of the Attorney General. The position is judicially independent. Coroners in BC come from a wide variety of backgrounds: medical, legal, investigative, business or other. The common prerequisite is that the individual be an intelligent, upstanding, concerned and honest member of the community. There are 20 full-time Coroners and 120 appointed fee-for-service Coroners in the Province who provide services to local, and sometimes remote, communities. Coroners are on duty and available 24 hours a day.

What is the Coroner's Role?

The Coroner is responsible for ascertaining the facts surrounding a death and must determine:
· the identity of the deceased, and;
· how, when, where and by what means the deceased died.

The death is then classified as natural, accidental, suicide, homicide or undetermined. Coroners may make recommendations, which may prevent similar loss of life in the future. The Coroner does not assign fault or blame but rather conducts a fact-finding investigation. There is no reason to fear a Coroner
How does the Coroner establish cause of death?

The Coroner has the authority to collect information, conduct interviews, inspect and seize documents, secure the scene of death and take possession of the human remains. The Coroner is responsible for authorizing removal of the remains to the morgue. A careful examination of the circumstances leading up to the death is undertaken. Training and experience enable the Coroner to decide if the findings required by law can be determined without a post mortem examination. If such a procedure is deemed necessary, a qualified pathologist performs a medical-legal autopsy. This may include the collection of specimens for toxicological analysis.