It is a big day! Today my grandma turns 92. And though I will not get to see her on her birthday, I do intend to give her a call later this evening.

My grandma was, and is, a big part of my life. She still lives on her own in an apartment in a retirement center about the size of Texas in Goshen, Indiana. She is very active. She still volunteers, she JUST stopped driving (she had a sporty Mercury Cougar), and though she has one of those wheeled walkers with the seat, the storage compartment, and the hand brakes (it’s not as sporty as her Cougar but quite plain……you see them everywhere now) she really doesn’t even need it. She uses it to get back and forth to the mailbox and dining area…..at 92 her apartment is at the very end of her building and the furthest away.

My grandparents have always been such a big part of my life. Just about every weekend I was down at their house, which was 20 miles from where I grew up, and all the time in the summers. So I suppose Goshen is my adopted home town, and of course my grandma’s home still.

At 92 my grandma is still the same….a comforting constant in my life. She still does puzzles, she still keeps up on everything in our family and gives great advice, and she never misses sending a card or a note. And when I was a kid she and I would sit on the front porch together eating grapes, peanut M&M’s and back then she would have a Coke and I a Fresca! You never left her house without a “goodie bag,” and even though those front porch memories are over 40 years old, if you open the first drawer on the right in her kitchen, you will find it loaded with all you would ever need to make one of those bags.

I am the man I am today because of my grandparents, and no,that is not assigning blame!!! I am thankful for it!! She even gave me advice on my stroke….she herself had a devastating one she fully recovered from in her 50’s.

Happy Birthday Grandma. I love you. Thanks for loving me and caring for me. I will see you very soon. I am so very blessed to have you in my life.

Tom+