A Century Full of Life

Today my Grandma turns 100.  A while back I had asked her to promise me she would do her best to make it to 100.  I told her I always wanted to brag about that my grandma has lived to 100.  This past weekend our family surprised her with a visit and we had a big party to celebrate.  She was surprised and she just about died when her cousin Mary Lou showed up.  It was a fun weekend celebrating my grandma's life, a century worth.

She has lived through quit a bit.  She has lived through two World Wars. She was raised during The Great Depression.  She will tell you she knew no different then but we know her frugality is impart due to her up bringing.  Which she says if you didn't have the money you didn't buy it and if it was broken you would fix it.  This too has made a big part of my Grandma who she is.  Probably the number one thing anyone in our family will say about her is her awe inspiring ability to fix, mend or repair anything.  She is a self trained master seamstress and although she wouldn't call her self that. But we all know of her amazing ability.  She also lived through the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, she has lived through 17 Presidents, through Pearl Harbor, the creation of penicillin and vaccines for polio, through the Cuban missile crisis,  through racial segregation and the outlawing of racial segregation, through the first human to walk in space, through the first personal computer, and through the AIDS epidemic, through the Berlin wall coming down, through the 911 attack, and much much more.  She has lived through a century's worth of world events.  Not all these world events mean much to her.  But it is amazing to look at the world events that she has been a live to know about.  Things change a lot during a century.

One thing I have learned from my grandma is how much her family and loved ones mean to her.  My Grandma is a strong woman not only physically but mentally and emotionally.  When I look back on her life and the stories she tells the words that come to mind are grace, and dignified, and strength.  She has been through much in her life but will tell you "that is just how life is" and won't feel sorry for herself.  She lost her second child in a plane crash at an early age.  She didn't get to see her become a mother or the many other things that happen in a person's life.  She seems to have handled it with so much grace.  When I asked her once how she dealt with it her response was she couldn't change it so she accepted it and lived her life.  Although now to this day you can see the wound that I am sure is left after losing a child that is never really healed.  She has taught me that it is the little things that you do that shows your kids you love them.  

She has also showed me that a simple life does not mean a boring life or that you have not touched others lives.  She has lived a great life and an admirable one at that.  Plus she has touched the lives of all her grandchildren and because of that we all have a strong sense of need for our children to know her.  She is a witty little lady and makes us laugh still.  As she has aged the sweeter she has become.  I have truly been blessed by my Grandmother.  I didn't appreciate her while in my youth but as I have grown older I have been so intrigued by her life and her knowledge.  She is a simple woman and I love that about her and I love her to pieces.  I have wanted to soak up her knowledge and way of doing things so that it doesn't stop with her.  Her life is truly one to celebrate.

Her Senior picture