Happy Birthday, Grammy!

Grammy at my Mom's age, on the beach. Grammy plays a mean hand of Skip-Bo. Grammy and her two daughters.

Road Trip Notes: My iPod battery and one tank of gas last exactly from my house to Grammy's. Divine Providence, surely. Underappreciated inventors: The persons who thought up the soap dispenser, the air hand-dryer, and the cruise control. Great road-trip music: Garbage. Note to self: arriving back at the office in time for work does not necessarily mean that one will actually be ready to work on time, particularly if one has gotten up at 2 a.m. in order to drive home. Grammy's Birthday: The reason for my little road trip to LA (the first road trip I've taken solo in more than five years), was my Grammy's 93rd birthday. Grammy looks better and healthier at 93 than she did at 92, and we all have great hopes for a 94th birthday celebration next year. I hope my brother is home by then. I'm actually hoping Grammy will hold out until we provide her with a little grandchild (named after her if it is a girl, as per an old promise I made her), but we're still a few years out on that one, so God will decide. Speaking of God deciding? If the world were a schoolroom, and God were the teacher, my Grammy would be, like, his favorite pupil ever. She always does the reading, never gossips, and helps everyone as best she can, with a smile on her face. I love her so much I can't even tell you. She's 93 and still crocheting (she made a beautiful lace afghan for our wedding). She raised my cousin Kimmy for years, when Kimmy's parents couldn't. She always remembers birthdays. She taught Sunday School. She was a substitute teacher for differently abled kids. She has incredible amounts of patience and wisdom. She's always thinking about how to make life better for other people. She traveled as much as she could in her retirement; her last international trip was to help build an orphanage in Mexico ... in her mid-eighties! She takes setbacks and disappointments with more grace than anyone else I know. She reads all the time, and gardens, too. She adores her cat. I told my friend I. that my Grammy was the most Christian woman I'd ever met, with the forgiveness and the other cheek and the love and all. She said, "Oh, you mean the real Christian part." Exactly. My cousin N is trying to get Grammy to do an oral history, but Aunt K says you'll never get the whole story out of her, because she won't say a bad word about anyone or anything. It's not any way I could ever be, myself, but knowing someone like that? It's a gift and a blessing. Happy Birthday, Grammy.