One Hundred

Today is my great grandma's birthday! She would have been 100 years old. I have a lot of great memories of my great grandma, but those will have to wait for another day.

Someone once described my great grandma as classy, and I've never been able to come up with a better way to describe her. Classy describes someone who is kind, caring, tough, and elegant all in one neat little package of a word. By example, my great grandma taught me resilience, that nothing is more important than family, and that no matter what happens it will all be better by the time you're a grandma.

Someday, I will figure out how to use the scanner on our printer
so the photos won't be so blurry! That day, however, is not today.

Things I am grateful I will never have to do because she did:

• I will never have to apply for a United States green card or citizenship
• I didn't have to sail across the ocean at the age of 16 to find a better life
• I hope to never have to live through a world war or a fear that the airplane I hear over my home is about to drop a bomb
  
• I hope to never refrain from taking photos of my children for fear someone would think we were suspicious because we come from a different country
• I seriously doubt Wil will ever be arrested and subsequently spend a year in jail for making moonshine (ok, so I know her going through this in no way was a sacrifice for future generations, but it makes for a great story!)
  

There's a wedding photo of my great grandma and grandpa that has been hanging in my grandma's house since I was a little girl. From the time I was old enough to understand the Great Depression, I've looked at that photo and the date inscribed underneath it - August 1929 - in wonder. Her and my great grandpa were married just two months before the stock market crashed, ushering in the Great Depression.

It's funny how history repeats itself, and I got married just a few months before the United States entered the greatest recession since the Great Depression. I have to say there have been times in the past year when I have listened to all of the seemingly bad economic indicators and thought, if my great grandma could make it through the Great Depression, then we will make it through this easily. We will still have fun, enjoy life, start a family and do all of the things that she was able to do in world conditions that seemed even worse than they do now. It's comforting to have such a great example and gives me hope that one day, I will be able to be just a portion as tough as she was!

Happy birthday, great grandma!