It's My Birthday!

I am 68 years old today. It's a sobering thought. I have officially lived longer than my mother or my father did. Mum lived to be 67 and five months before cancer won out over her strong spirit.

I have not, however, lived longer than my grandmothers. My mother's mother lived to be 75 and was quite vigorous until about a week before pneumonia did her in. The pneumonia hit her when she was cleaning the basement, fell and hit her head, and lay on the cold floor for several hours before she was found.

My father's mother lived to be 96, and was in a nursing home, blind, diabetic and crippled for 23 years. She had a hard life, born in a Conestoga wagon in which she and her family lived for many years. The first time she slept in a house was when at the age of 14, she was sent to work in the home of a grocer.

My great grandmother, her mother, lived to be 97. One would think that she probably passed away in a rocking chair. No, not her! She was out in her garden, wedding curcumbers when she tripped over a cucumber vine, broke her hip and died of shock.

That would be my preferred way of going. So I am working on the next 29 years, writing, quilting, gardening and going to church, hoping for the best and taking what life doles out.