Who loved Betty White? Apparently, everyone did. She was the shining example of how to grow old doing what you loved.

She won my heart at an Emmy ceremony I covered years ago.

In addition to presenting, Betty, who co-hosted her segment with Ed Asner, also won the Emmy for outstanding guest actress for a comedy series for playing herself on “The John Larroquette Show.”

“The show had a wonderful gang of writers, some of them from ‘Golden Girls,’ but I never expected to win,” she said with sincerity.

“She’s Betty White – how could she not expect to win?” I thought to myself, admiring her humility.

The Emmy statuettes were lined up on long tables in hallways and the winners came to claim them with a card, much like when you use valet parking for your car.

As it turned out, I was standing near Betty when she claimed her Emmy.

“How does it feel to hold one of these?” I asked.

“Here. See for yourself,” she responded, placing it in my shaking hands.

She hugged me like we were old friends.

“I have a very good group of girls for her to join,” Betty smiled as I returned her Emmy. I would later write that Betty White was as nice as you would expect her to be.

What I admired most about the Golden Girl was the way she handled love and loss.

Although Betty was married to game show host Allen Ludden for “18 wonderful years,” as she often said, she was widowed for almost four decades.

During that time, her career continued to flourish.

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“Allen had a great sense of humor and that was so much fun to live with,” she said of her husband. She seemed to take that as her base, honoring the memory of their time together by continuing to fill her life with humor and work she loved.

The love of her work made Betty radiant from within, and by extension set an example about the joy of growing older doing what you love.

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