Centennial Celebration

My great grandmother was born on July 21, 1910. It doesn't take a math genius to figure out that she would have been 100 years old today. However, she died in her sleep 7 years ago. Cause of death: natural causes. It was just her time to go. It didn't matter that I wasn't quite ready to see her go.

I could dwell on how much I miss her and how I would give anything just to hear her laugh or ask me to pour her "a little nip" or to be able to take one of our lonng slow walks just one more time. But reality tells me that's not going to happen. Instead I choose to celebrate.

I celebrate how lucky I was to have a great-grandmother. No one I grew up with had one.

I celebrate that she was my great- grandmother for 27 years, where to date that's way more than half of my life.

I celebrate her survival through the Depression. Even though I hated that because of said survival, she used to make me eat the ends of the bread loaf as she saw it as wasteful not to. I still hate the bread ends.

I celebrate her sage piece of advice as I left for college: "Keep your dress down and your panties up." Even though I didn't always follow said advice. I think I transposed dress and panties in her advice a few times.

I celebrate her unconditional love. She is the epitome of unconditional love. To me, the patron saint of unconditional love. I never ever felt like she didn't love anyone in my family, even when some of us were doing some idiotic crap (some waaaaaay more often than others but I digress). She was always there, with a kind word, a funny story, a pat on the hand, and a threat to whack you across your heiney with a wooden spoon (Now that I think about it, I never got that wooden spoon whack across my heiney. Well at least not from Granny. lol).One of my tattoos is an homage to her and her unconditional love.

I celebrate her laugh. Granny loved to laugh. As do I. Maybe its in the genes.

I celebrate her intelligence. Granny did the newspaper crossword puzzles. In Pen. And finished. Oh and did I mention this was the New York Times AND the Daily News crossword puzzles. And yes, this was daily. Ummm, yeah one day I'll attempt this feat.

I celebrate her broad spectrum views on life. In the later years, Granny only watched two television programs - Jeopardy in the evening and Maury in the morning. Jeopardy for obvious reasons and Maury because she found it quite entertaining that these fools had no idea who had the label of "my baby daddy".

I celebrate her warmth. She loved everybody. Her doorman, my best friends, her daughter's ex-husband (my grandfather), "the fellas" (her general word for her male senior citizen friends in her building. I think she just couldn't remember their names so her crew became "the fellas").

I celebrate her love of storytelling. She may not have had the delivery of Sophia but she loved to share stories - all funny. Only she could tell a story about the Depression and make it funny.

I celebrate all of this and so much more.If I can exude a tenth of her warmth, charm, humor, and giving heart, then I've succeeded in life.

My Granny. My Great-grandmother. My friend. Now my guardian angel.

Instead of missing her for the rest of my life, I celebrate all that she was to me for the rest of my life. I think she would prefer it that way.