Not that my lovely little grandmother will ever see this but I put together this collage to celebrate her 98th birthday. I made the difficult decision to not fly out to California this year to visit her and I'm more upset about that than I thought I'd be. And I'd anticipated quite a bit of unhappiness. Anyway, today's her big day and I'm happy to report that she's still going strong. Some of these pictures I took at previous years' birthday celebrations and others were obviously taken before my time.
She's had an amazing life and is a wonderful storyteller. Just when I think I've heard all of her tales about growing up in Germany, becoming a midwife (her midwife class is seen in the middle picture), surviving the war, emigrating to the United States, and making a life here she surprises me with something I've never heard before. My favorite new story is how she turned down marriage to a local boy, what would have been a stable, sensible match, because she knew she had too much of a sense of adventure to settle in the village. She wanted to see the world so worked to make that happen.
Anyway, I miss her as I miss my entire family and I'm glad to have had so many opportunities to spend time with her as I grew up.
