Beloved grade school teacher Martha Stanley, of Boca Raton, FL, passed away today at the age of 96, just hours after overcoming her lifelong struggle with negative body image.
“I’ve spent most of my long life hating every inch of my body, but just this morning I finally realized that I’m not half bad,” said Stanley, shortly before taking her last breath.
“Martha’s body hatred spanned decades and echoed the eras of American culture that she was living through,” explained Dr. Kim Jenkins, Assistant Professor of American History at Columbia University. “During the Great Depression, she started hating her stomach area—so many of her friends were slimming down because their parents couldn’t put food on the table, but her malnutrition presented as abdominal edema. She was one of the few people to go on a diet during a famine. And let’s not forget the 1970s when Martha joined the women’s movement, but refused to burn her bras because her breasts were ‘too droopy and lopsided’ to lose the support.”
“I think it’s wonderful that our mother was able to overcome her negative self-image before she passed,” explained Stanley’s daughter Jennifer, while staring down sadly at her nonexistent thigh gap.
“Yes, really, really wonderful,” echoed her other daughter Naomi, absentmindedly squeezing her muffin top and frowning.
“She just decided she was ready to stop beating herself up over the number on the scale—the scale she couldn’t even step onto with her hip condition—and really start practicing self-kindness and self-care for those last few hours,” her son Gregory explained, with confidence exuding from his self-proclaimed “power face.”
Stanley died of natural causes in her home, wearing a bikini she had bought 43 years prior but never wore until her dying day.
In response to one of her last dying wishes, the funeral will now be open-casket.
