My late mother was and is still my role model. Not when I was young, but certainly in later life.
My mum was widowed in her fifties, I was 17 when my father died. She hadn't worked since they got married in the 1930s, the norm then. The mistake my parents made was not buying their home, as my dad's superannuation was all her inheritance, and a widow's pension wasn't much. She found a job cleaning for a retired solicitor and his wife, five minutes from home. My dad had been a jute mill manager, so it was a bit of a step down. She didn't complain, just got on with it, and eventually became their housekeeper. The wife died, and mum looked after the old chap. She was 70 when he passed away, and she retired.
I left Scotland to come to England when my daughter was a baby, in the hope of career opportunities for my husband. My mum never complained, or tried to stand in our way, but loved coming to visit. It was hard when her health started failing, I went home when I could, but I had a full time job and two kids. Mum was adamant she wasn't moving from the flat she lived in since she married my dad, but she eventually had to move into residential care, and finally a nursing home. I'm glad I was with her when she died, in her late 80s. She's my role model because she 'got on with it'. She could have moaned about her life as a widow for over 30 years, but she just dealt with it. Stoic, is how I'd describe her, and my gran. I hope I'd do as well if I needed to.