This is an opinion column.

I’ll forgive you if you don’t know Nina Reeves. After all, five presidents have come and gone (and come back) since she officially retired from the United Methodist Church.

I’ll forgive you, but I’ll still feel bad for you.

This is a woman who was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 2022, who was told she was going to die and laughed it off by pointing out that, at 97, it wasn’t that big of a shock. She decided to forego treatment, to spend the rest of her days at home, being herself and welcoming visitors.

Shoot. She quit hospice because they wouldn’t let her do all she wanted to do. That was a couple of years ago.

As her 100th birthday approached – it is today – her neighbor Philip Young sent invitations saying that for her birthday she wanted “random, drop-by visits – anyone, anytime.”

She meant it. And there have been many.

I’ve struggled to figure out how to explain Nina Reeves to those who do not know her. My words seem insufficient. For she is both simple and complex, and more than the sum of her unlikely parts.

Nina Reeves grew up in the Mississippi Delta, touring summers in her grandmother’s traveling carnival, learning that people are people no matter what you call them. Some of those people were called some unsavory names.

She’s been described as a “living saint” and a “Methodist Mother Teresa.” I think of her as the most beloved figure in Alabama Methodism, the comforting storyteller at Camp Sumatanga for my whole youth, and that of my children. She told old folk tales like “Split Dog” and “Wicked John and the Devil” to generations.

She spent 49 years as youth director of the Methodist’s North Alabama Conference, working with my dad and many others. She challenged segregation in the church in the 1950s, and somehow managed to keep her job, her influence, and the love of those around her.

David Housel, former athletic director at Auburn University, said he met Reeves at a time in his youth when he thought it a sin to really enjoy life.

“It’s been more than 60 years since my Camp Sumatanga experiences. And Nina Reeves is still a light unto my path,” Housel said. “I’ll put it this way. Nina taught me it was okay to laugh, to smile, to have fun.”

That changed him. And – I can attest – Housel changed others because of it.

“When I think about her, I smile,” he said. “I feel warm. I feel accepted. I feel loved. And I’m not the only one. There are thousands just like me.”

There really are.

Reggie Holder, director of Ministries at Highland’s United Methodist in Birmingham, marvels at how Reeves came right out of Mississippi in a turbulent time, always understanding the importance of love and acceptance.

“Thousands of people consider her their spiritual mother and mentor,” he said. “She always expected and brought out the best in others and built the strongest and most inclusive community at her summer camps that many of us had ever experienced.”

Josh Bean, a former camper (and former colleague of mine), might have figured out how she does it.

“Some people inspire with their words. Others inspire with their grit and determination,” he said. “A select few, though, possess the rare superpower to inspire others by simply being themselves.”

That’s it, I think. And she’s been doing it for 100 years.

Reeves taught the value of stillness, of listening, said Woodfin Gregg, who worked with Reeves on camp staffs and otherwise.

“I will never forget Nina Reeves’ bringing an Assembly Hall full of noisy teenage campers to complete silence by speaking in a calm, quiet voice,” he said. “Nina taught us to be quiet and listen… This influenced my life in ways I am still learning to appreciate.”

All these people understand Nina Reeves’ secret, which is no secret at all. In her acceptance of herself and others, in her willingness to listen, she inspires people to hear and to think and to act. Not just in a moment, but for a lifetime.

But why ask others when we can ask her. Nina Reeves has seen the depression and WWII and the moon landing and changes that bring us to our own far-too-interesting times. What advice does she have to those who want to carry on, to hold on to conscience, and empathy, and common decency in a world that seems to devalue those things?

Do not be overwhelmed, she said.

“Do good wherever you are and just love everybody,” she said. “That’s all you can do. Just love everybody and do the best you can in your little neck of the world. You can’t do more than that.”

She’s done it for a century, and don’t mistake it for some small thing. Nina Reeves did the best she could in her corner of the world all her life, and touched people across Alabama and beyond.

She’s still doing it.

“You know I’m sitting here, I have to walk on a walker,” she said. “But if I could get up and go out I couldn’t do more than I’m doing right now. I do the best I can right here, and just love everybody.”

Happy birthday, Nina.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner at AL.com.