Grandmother tree

Today is my maternal grandmother’s 116th birthday. I loved her fiercely. She was an ample-bodied woman, soft and comforting, with pillowy arms and an enfolding lap. She sang hymns with a generous glissando, and she did a wonderful little soft-shoe shuffly dance around her house as she was cleaning. She was loyal to her circle of good friends, and what I remember best is her head-back, leg-slapping, whole-hearted laugh. She began and ended each day in prayer, and on one of our last visits, she told me she was happier in her eighties than she had ever been before. She loved long walks around her quiet little neighborhood in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Homemade chocolate fudge was her favorite food, though pound cake came in a close second. Kate Smith, Marian Anderson, and Enrico Caruso were her favorite singers, and her heroine was Eleanor Roosevelt. Her formula for living was simple: “Whenever you have a choice to make, choose kindness.” 


She left the world at the age of ninety-one by refusing to eat. She was firm in her resolve and peaceful. 

On a completely different subject, if you are not following HollowSpy, check out his journal. He's traveling in Guatemala and blipping some amazing pictures.