Category Archives: Whimsies

Get Off My Lawn

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I started wondering yesterday while walking home from a grocery store visit during which I was particularly cranky at what age we all start getting consistently grouchy. You know, when do we stop saying come over to my house for a backyard lawn party and start saying get off my lawn.

Because I’m convinced it happens to all of us. But why, I wonder.

Is it because we never feel perfectly good? When you’re a youngster, you might have skinned knees like my grandson Micah……

….or you might have to wear a homemade graduation cap that is too tight around your neck, like my niece Lilly…..

…..or suffer the humiliation of having to swim naked because your parents forgot your swim suit like my niece Faith…..

…..but you basically feel good. You feel like you’re going to live to be a hundred.

However, starting in the mid-50s (though it probably varies from person to person), there likely isn’t a time when there isn’t an ache in some part of your body. For me, it started in my early 40s when my neck began hurting from spending hours at the computer in the evening working on my master’s degree after spending hours at the computer making a living. It’s not a great ache, but it’s tenacious.

When we were growing up, we lived at the end of a block. We had friends in the neighborhood who lived a few houses away from ours. For reasons I never understood, there was no sidewalk on our side of the street, though there was a perfectly lovely sidewalk across the street. And our street was fairly busy. It’s true our town was small – only 10,000 folks – but the street was somewhat of a main drag from the highway heading south through town. So to get to our friends’ houses, we had two choices – walk on the busy street or walk on our neighbor’s lawn. We chose the lawn.

For many years, this caused no angst to anyone. The neighbors were our friends. My mother and the neighbor lady had coffee klatches each morning. You know, coffee klatches. What women did to communicate and bond before there was Snapchat and Starbucks. Walk through the hole in the hedge and open the neighbor’s screen door and holler, “Hellooooo. Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

But then life happened and suddenly, when we would innocently walk to our friends’ houses, unthinkingly stepping on the lawn, the neighbors would open the front door and yell, “Get off the lawn.” I’m not sure why. There might have been a rift. They might have entered a Beautiful Lawn Contest. Their necks might have been hurting. But we took to stopping at the edge of the lawn, glancing carefully at the front door for signs of eyes peering out the little window, and then running like the dickens to the next lawn, where they didn’t care so much if we walked on their lawn.

By the way, what made me cranky at the grocery store was that the store only has one checkstand open in the morning because there are not that many shoppers at 8:30 a.m. However, if there are even 10 shoppers, and if even half of them are ready to pay, there is a line. At that point, the store managers (if they’re paying attention) call up one of the merchandise stockers to be a cashier. Except today she didn’t turn on her light. So as I walked up, I saw a long line at the one check stand that had a light on, and a short line at the checkstand at which the stocker was working. Having worked as a grocery store cashier (albeit nearly 45 years ago), I know that when the light goes off, the cashier wants to close down and go back to stocking shelves. So I dutifully got in the long line at the lit-up checkout stand.

Except others shoppers kept getting in the other lane and she kept checking them out. And it made me cranky. Which took me to the place where I started this blog post, wondering how I got so cranky. Because, you see, I’m retired. I have so much time in my day that I could stand in the checkout lane for eight hours and not miss an appointment.

So go ahead. Walk on my lawn. I’m getting a grip.

Up, Up and Away

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The world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sal along the silver sky
For we can fly, we can fly. – Jimmy Webb

I hate to fly. I’m scared of flying. In fact, the older I get, the more I realize I’m scared of just about everything. Well, except for eating hot dogs. Despite all of the dire information we get about just what’s in a lowly Oscar Mayer weenie (or any other kind of weenie for that matter) I could eat one every day. But most everything else is cause for alarm.

So, when I opened my Christmas present from Dave and Jll last December and saw that it was a gift certificate for a hot air balloon ride, my eyes momentarily glazed over in terror, but I swallowed hard, said my thanks, and vowed to myself that I was just going to put on my big girl pants and go for a ride in a hot air balloon. If the Wizard of Oz could do it, so could I.

The gift certificate was for a ride for two, so despite the fact that Bill is just about as afraid of heights as I, he agreed to be my plus one. We decided to make the reservation for April because by that time any company we expected would have come and gone and the mornings would be a bit warmer. We decided on the Saturday before Easter, and couldn’t think of a thing that would go wrong.

And then Bill’s mom passed away on Good Friday. Still, our plane reservation to Chicago wasn’t until Monday, and after much discussion, we decided we would go ahead with it as a welcome distraction.

We met our balloon pilot Duane and his chaser (a human, not a beer), Keith, at literally the crack of dawn the morning of April 15 at a Starbucks near Chandler Airport. Since we were so near a small airport, I assumed that somehow the balloon would take off from that spot. Instead, we crawled into the truck with the two men, the basket perkily sitting on the back of the trailer being pulled by the truck, and took off to follow the wind.

That morning, it seems there wasn’t a great deal of wind. That was good news for Bill and me because it meant not only could we take off from the first place they tested, but the balloon ride looked to be a gentle one. Had the wind conditions not been right, our pilot and his pal would have driven on until they found JUST the right spot.

We watched as they laid out the balloon and began filling it with cool air. The brightly colored balloon needed to be full of air that could be heated up so that it would fly. The balloon’s size caught me off guard, having only seen them up in the sky where they appear to be about one inch in diameter.

As the balloon filled, my heart began thumping in my chest. I was really nervous. I mentioned my fear to the pilot, who told me that most everyone is nervous before the ride, but almost everyone is fearless by time the balloon comes to its sudden halt at the end. Yeah, I thought. Well, he doesn’t know this woman who gets nervous looking down from the church choir loft.

He had warned us that when the balloon was ready to fly, we needed to be ready to hop into the basket. There was no door like I expected. Hopping into the basket meant literally placing your feet in the tiny holes and throwing yourself into the smaller-than-expected basket (literally about the size of a small kitchen table). As you can imagine, I was all grace and gentility.

Our pilot told me later that I was shaking so hard that he could feel the basket shake. Recognizing pure, unadulterated fear when he sees it, the wise man took it very easy and kept us fairly near the ground as we began. I wanted to take photos, but I was absolutely too scared to let go of the side of the basket for quite some time.

However, just as he’d promised, it wasn’t long before I grew comfortable with the gentle gliding of the balloon. So comfortable, in fact, that I began taking photos. After about a half hour, he asked if I was comfortable enough for him to go higher, and both Bill and I agreed. I think we reached 5,000 feet. I’m sure he can go and has gone higher, but being an astute observer of mankind, he reckoned that was high enough.

We floated above the area for a full hour before he began searching for a safe place to land. In the meantime, his chaser kept his eye on us, and his experience allowed him to pretty much know which direction we would head and where we would land. Our pilot confirmed his intentions, and we prepared for landing.

It was abrupt, as landings go. Of course, I am wholly unfamiliar with balloon landings, so no complaints here. And I knew that treats and champagne were in my future.

Which they were…….

At the end of the day, I think Bill agrees that it was an absolutely lovely way to spend a clear and cool Saturday morning, and we both would do it again in a heartbeat.

This post linked to Grand Social and Blogging Grandmother’s Link Party.

Saturday Smile: The Sunny Side of Life

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In a period that was sort of sad for Bill and me following the death of his mother, the grandkids once again provided necessary smiles.

We hadn’t even gotten home from Chicago when this photo arrived in my inbox with the message Guess who got her braces off?…..

The answer, of course, is Kaiya. Since she is only 8, I’m sure the braces were only preliminary, since orthodontists have figured out that if they can convince parents that kids should have braces twice instead of once, they could take more vacations. But isn’t she pretty? And proud. And happy, because now she can drink root beer.

The night of Wilma’s funeral, the family gathered at a restaurant. The adults liked chatting with family members they hadn’t seen for a while, but it was kind of boring for the kids. Joseph and Micah, however, were able to keep themselves occupied and content for quite some time, perhaps enjoying some quiet time away from cousins — and each other….

We stayed at a hotel that served a free breakfast each morning. Alastair came down the first morning, hair quite askew, and made his version of the perfect waffle — no butter, no syrup, lots of whipped cream….

I couldn’t stop myself from taking a picture of Micah’s fully little-boy knees, all scraped up….

Last but most assuredly not least, Miss Dagny shows off her beekeeper’s attire as she and her family embark upon a beekeeping adventure. They have the clothes; they have prepared a spot in the back yard; now they just are awaiting the bees. A lot of cuteness underneath the protective gear…..

Have a great weekend.

Thursday Thoughts

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Happy Memories
Yesterday was my dad’s birthday. He would have been 91 years old. He passed away in 2010, but I never fail to think of him on his birthday, in the same way I think of my mom every September 16. Sometime about mid-afternoon, I got a text from my brother, saying Happy birthday Dad. I wrote yesterday about Bill’s father, but today I tell you all that I had a very good man for a father too. I hope our kids will say the same sorts of things about Bill and me when we’re long gone. I’m pretty sure that today was my paternal grandfather’s birthday. Funny how I remember that, and he’s been gone for 40-some years. And yet, I can’t remember where I’ve left my telephone most of the time.

T-Mobile, Can You Hear Me Now?
And speaking of my telephone, when I purchased my new iPhone awhile back, I did so on the installment plan from T-Mobile in which they simply add the cost of the phone to our regular bill monthly until it’s paid off. Up until then, T-Mobile was one of the bills my husband paid. He would get an email from T-Mobile and act accordingly. But when I bought my telephone, I told Bill I would be happy to just take over that entire bill, including my telephone, and he agreed. Our thought was we would just change the email address so that I would get the bill instead of him. Easy peasy, right? Except, not. First of all, when we suggested that to the telephone salesperson (who was probably 20 years old), he looked like a deer in the headlights. “Um, um, um, I can’t do that here,” he stammered. “You need to talk to Payment Services.”  Which would be fine, except we can’t find payment services. So Bill went online and found a link to an account representative you could talk to online. He did, and explained that he would like to change the email address of the person paying the bill. We worked with her all afternoon, I kid you not, but finally had a vague thought that we might have gotten through to her. But no, because the next month Bill once again got the email. He forwarded it to me, and I paid the bill, hoping, but certainly not confident, that the next month it would come to me. Nope. I finally told Bill, just forward the bill to me each month and let’s not worry any more. So Bill got the bill yesterday, and for inexplicable reasons, it was only half of what it had been.  He spent his afternoon trying to get it worked out, and believes he has, but I’m not confident.

Hot Stuff
The temperatures are starting to warm up here in AZ. This past week, the highs have hovered very near 100, though as of yet, it hasn’t reached three digits. I guess it’s time to get out of Dodge, as they say.

Creak
For the past few months, Bill has been experiencing a lot of hip pain, and I finally talked him into seeing a doctor. They did an x-ray, and not surprisingly, there was evidence of some bone degeneration in his back. My guess is if you shot an x-ray of every single person over the age of 60 here in the Valley of the Sun, most would show degeneration. Still, the day that he went to his first physical therapy appointment, I was somewhat amused to see that every person in the office was around Bill’s age…..

I was further amused when one of the fellows said to the guy sitting next to him, “I wonder which part of my body I should have them work on today?” It came as no surprise that the background music was Frank Sinatra.

Pretty Flowers
And finally, as every spring when the cactus bloom, here is a photo of our beautiful prickly pear cactus showing off its color. I’m always sad that my sister Jen isn’t here to see it…..

And a few years back, Bill planted what was called a hibiscus tree, which purported to be an annual, but the fact of the matter is that it has bloomed every year since. This year it is especially pretty….

Ciao.

What Nots

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I never really got the opportunity to get to know Bill’s dad, Rex. By the time we first met, he was in early-to-middlin’ stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and as is common with that awful illness, it went steadily downhill from there. We met, but he likely didn’t really know who I was or where I fit in.

An old family photo that shows Bill standing just in front of his father.

But for the entire time I have known Bill, I have heard the stories – legends, really – about William Rex McLain. Enough stories that I feel as though I know the man fairly well. He was born on a farm in rural North Carolina, the youngest son (third youngest child if I read the faded handwriting in the family bible correctly) of 11, many of whom had good Southern Baptist names like Jehue and Isaac and Eula Mae. This boy, who grew up working the farm somehow made it to North Carolina State, where he majored in Engineering, and eventually earned a master’s degree from Ohio State.

He was a smart man, and worked in upper management for 40 years at U.S. Steel in Chicago. But most of the stories Bill tells of his father aren’t about his work at the steel mill, but about his work at home – both the physical work around the house, but also the work of bringing up four rambunctious kids and teaching them to be honest and hardworking.

He could – and did – fix just about anything. Anyone who knows Bill and is reading those words is now thinking, hmmm, that sounds familiar. And it’s true, because Bill will tell you himself that everything he learned to do around the house, he learned from his dad. Occasionally, when I will suggest a shortcut to a project (because you can imagine just how much I know about fixing things), Bill will look at me and say patiently for the 50th time, “My dad always said if you’re going to do something, do it right.”

In those days, at least in the Wilma and Rex household, you didn’t throw things away when they broke. You fixed them. For example, Wilma and Rex received a toaster as a wedding gift in 1940. When Wilma moved into Smith Crossing some 60 years later, she packed up the toaster and brought it along because it still worked. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It hadn’t worked perfectly for 60 years without fail; however, when it would break, Rex would fix it. Her kids finally talked her into throwing it away when it broke and Rex was no longer around to fix it, somewhere in the neighborhood of 2006.

Wilma cared for Rex at home for as long as she possibly could. One day he fell in their home and she was unable to lift him, so she called 911. The firefighters came and helped him back into his chair, and he was luckily unhurt. Still, at that point they sternly told her she needed to put him someplace where he could be cared for, and the family strongly concurred. So he was moved to a nursing home, where he died not too long after.

Not surprisingly, Wilma visited him daily, providing him comfort and bringing him foods he liked and making him laugh if she could. She would take his clothes home at night, and wash them. One of my favorite stories about Rex is that she would frequently find nuts and bolts and hardware and pieces of the windows or the shutters in his pocket. The reason that story pleases me so much is that somewhere deep in the recesses of that mind that couldn’t even remember the name of his wife of more than 50 years, he remembered that he fixed things.

This a long-winded lead-in to a simple story that I want to tell you.

When we were at Wilma’s apartment the day that the movers were going to come and pack up everything to send to Bill’s sister Kathy to sort and disperse, Bill’s brother Bruce suggested we walk through and see if there is anything we would like to take. Wilma had very nice things, and I’m so grateful that she gave me many lovely gifts over the years. But she still had Royal Doulton porcelain pieces and Lladro porcelain pieces and some Tiffany glass. She had some very nice art prints that she had collected over the years. But when it came time to select items belonging to Mom/Grandma/Great Grandma, Bill and his kids chose things like a fork and knife that she had used to cook bacon…..

…..and pieces of costume jewelry that Wilma had collected over the years…..

….and a needlepoint refrigerator magnet that says Jesus if you look at it correctly, and gibberish if you don’t.

But the thing that made me smile was the single item Alastair selected from his great grandmother’s house…..

…..a wrench that had originally belonged to his great-grandfather – or hell, maybe even his great-great-grandfather.

Guess that fix-it gene runs through the family. I may call Alastair if our washing machine starts acting up.

This post connected to Grammy’s Grid.

Fare Thee Well

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Funerals are funny. Not ha-ha funny, of course. Strange funny. Laughter and tears make strange bedfellows.

I remember when my mother passed away 20 years ago. She was in the hospital in Fort Collins, and the powers-that-be provided the family a private room to congregate that was just down the hall from the room in which my mother stayed and eventually died. All four of the siblings were there, and so, of course, was my dad. We would all come and go from that room, maybe going to spend a little time with Mom or visiting the bathroom or grabbing a cup of coffee at the cafeteria. But what I mostly recall is that we told stories about Mom and laughed and cried and hugged and held hands. A plethora of emotions, just as it’s supposed to happen.

That’s what I witnessed this past week as family gathered to send Bill’s mother Wilma on her way to heaven. She will make a beeline there, no doubt about it. Do not pass GO; do not collect $200.

Bill’s family is spread out and no one lives in Chicago. Birmingham, AL; Winston-Salem, NC; Kinnelon, NJ; and of course Denver/Mesa. Grandkids are even more spread out than that. So they aren’t able to gather often – the occasional wedding, a vacation or two. Once in a while, one of the siblings’ trip to visit Wilma would overlap for a day or two with another’s. That was about it.

Bill and his siblings.

So while there were plenty of tears (and likely even more than this blogger knows about since I wasn’t involved in some of the private time they spent with their mother), there was also plenty of laughter. All but one of Wilma’s grandchildren were present, and each one had a different and funny story about their grandmother. While the stories were varied, the sentiments were all the same. Grandma was funny and smart and loving and would be missed. My personal favorite was that the chocolate-loving Wilma would give the visiting grandkids M&Ms every morning with a wink, and tell them, “Here’s your vitamins.”

Some of Wilma’s grandkids.

It’s funny (again, not ha-ha funny) to live to be just three months shy of 100 years old. You know why? You outlive so many of the people you loved. While there were people at the funeral from the senior residence where she lived, only one of her four best friends from Smith Crossing is still alive.

Wilma and her friend Margaret on Wilma’s 98th birthday.

Her husband has been dead for 15 years, all of her sisters are gone as well. People she shared her life with, raised her children with, attended neighborhood parties with, all gone. It’s the natural order of life, but I imagine there is going to be some kind of party in heaven once St. Peter has her all settled into her heavenly home.

As for Bill and me, we had the opportunity to see most of our grandkids, all of whom loved their Great-Grandma Wilma. In celebration of her life, the first night we gathered, we went to a neighborhood ice cream place and had treats in her honor. Wilma would have approved.

Now we are all back to our real lives and Wilma’s in heaven with her friends and family. I’m happy that she is no longer in pain, but I will admit that the world will be a bit emptier place without her in it.

The Accidental Tourists

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Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” – Albert Einstein

I’m pretty sure the airlines – particularly Spirit Airlines – are about to remove Bill and me from their approved fliers list, if in fact they have such a list. Because this is the second time in only a few months that Bill and I erred – FLUBBED, really – when trying to simply fly from Point A to Point B. Last time it was Denver to Phoenix; this time it was Chicago to Phoenix.  You can read about our earlier debacle here.

As you may know, we made fairly last-minute travel plans to fly to Chicago for the funeral of Bill’s mother – who was, as the minister pointed out, 99.9 years old. We left the return date open-ended because at the time we made the reservation, she was still living. She subsequently passed away before we got to Chicago.

Once we arrived, we hit the ground running – connecting up with Bill’s siblings, who all live far apart and don’t see each other often, as well as our own children and grandchildren, most of who came to the funeral as well. In addition, Bill and his siblings needed to meet with the minister and the funeral home folks, arrange a dinner after the funeral, figure out what flowers were needed and what they should look like, determine what music Wilma would have selected as she was a music-lover and had been a long-time member of the choir at Morgan Park Baptist Church. You’ve got to get all of those details right so that your deceased loved one doesn’t come back and haunt you.

In the midst of all the chaos of the week, Bill realized we needed to get a return flight home. He began making the arrangements, intermittently between ordering flowers, selecting photos for the slide show, and comforting our grandkids who were sad that their great grandmother wasn’t sitting in the chair where she always sat.

At some point the day of the funeral, Bill told me we had reservations to fly back to Phoenix on Saturday morning at 8:46. Perfect, I thought, and then never gave it a single other thought.

So the week went by, and people began leaving little by little, until Friday, when it was just Bill and me and Bill’s brother Bruce. We enjoyed our day together……

and had a wonderful dinner that night…..

After our dinner, we finished our packing, and then set our alarm for 5:30 a.m.so that we would have plenty of time to drive to O’Hare Airport, turn in our rental car, check our ENORMOUS suitcase at Spirit, go through security, and maybe still have time to grab a bite to eat before we got on the plane.

And that’s how it all went down – just as we planned. Until we went to the Spirit gate to check our suitcase.  (Did I mention that it was ENORMOUS?)

Back when we were on our big European Adventure in 2008, we once got on the wrong train. The conductor looked at the tickets Bill handed him, and got truly the SADDEST look on his face. “This train no go to Padua,” he told us, much to our chagrin. It all worked out.

But I was reminded of that because the man at the Spirit gate weighed our ENORMOUS suitcase, and then looked at our boarding passes, and got the SADDEST look on his face.

“These tickets are for a flight that leaves at 8:46 this evening,” he told us. “Spirit doesn’t have any flights to Chicago during the day.”

In the words of the Jetson’s dog Astro, ruh-roh.

“Can we at least check our bag?” Bill asked hopefully, and was crestfallen when the answer was a sound no. The earliest they could accept our bag was three hours before the flight.  Eleven hours from that moment. Another example that the terrorists are winning.

After we pulled ourselves together, we learned these facts: 1) There are no storage lockers in airports any longer because, see above. The terrorists. 2) O’Hare Airport is perhaps the single international airport that has absolutely no restaurants outside of security. None. 3) After frantic googling, we learned that there is a Hilton Hotel attached to the airport that will allow you – for a steep price – to rent a room for eight or nine hours, even if you are not a prostitute. Which is what we did, because we had no other options because of our ENORMOUS suitcase.

We killed time at the Hilton Hotel, using every single item we could, and taking what we couldn’t, from our hotel room. We took showers; we took a nap; we used as many towels as we could. We took little bottles of shampoo and conditioner and tiny paper tablets and cheap pens. The only thing we didn’t do – which we would have been allowed to do – was use the fitness center. What, do you think we’re nuts?

At the end of the day, I texted my sisters this message: Hotel room = $150; Hotel breakfast=$57; Hotel lunch=$43; Blog post=Priceless.

As for Bill, throughout the day, he chastised himself for the error. I wasn’t having it, however, and reminded him that he had a few things on his mind and plate during the week.  It happened to him, but it could have happened to me just as easily.

And as I always tell him, between the two of us, we have one good brain.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

Book of Ruth

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Very appropriately, on Good Friday Bill’s mom was released from the suffering she had endured for the past couple of weeks of her life and went to heaven to be with her loved ones. She was only three months shy of her 100th birthday, and she herself would say that she had a good and rich life. We will miss her so much, but will remember all of the things she taught us, and we will continue to see her in her children and grandchildren.

A few years ago, I wrote this blog post about my mother-in-law, whom I loved so much. I think it is appropriate to run it again (changing only her age) as a tribute to a fine woman…..

Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me. – Ruth, 1: 16-17

wilma furThese beautiful words from the Old Testament Book of Ruth are often read at weddings. What is interesting is that Ruth did not say these words to Boaz, the man who would become her husband; instead, she uttered these words to her mother-in-law Naomi, the mother of her deceased first husband. It is one of my favorite bible stories. Having a good mother-in-law is a gift from God.

There’s almost nothing good about divorce. I can tell you this from experience because I went through a divorce and it was the most difficult time of my life.

Having said this, I am compelled to add that I have been blessed to have not just one, but two amazing mothers-in-law. Both accepted me into their lives with open arms and for that, I am very grateful.

Sadly, my first mother-in-law passed away far too young from cancer, not long after David’s and my divorce.

In contrast, I want to tell you a bit about the 99-year-old woman who has been my mother-in-law for the past 24 years.

The first thing you need to know about her is that her goodness comes from her deep faith in God, and she projects her faith every day in her behavior. Here’s an example.

I never knew Bill’s dad without the Alzheimer’s disease that eventually took his life. He passed away a few years after Bill and I married. We were in Chicago, along with all of his family, helping make the arrangements for the funeral service. I remember Wilma giving the minister a rundown on her family.

“I have four children,” she said, “and nine grandchildren.”

I began counting the grandkids silently. His sister Kathy had three, Bill had three, and his brother David had two.

“Wilma,” I said oh-so-helpfully, “you only have eight grandchildren.” I counted them out for her.

“No, I have nine,” she said. “You forgot to add your son Courtney.”

Seriously, I tear up even as I write those words. That meant so much to me that she included Court, whom she barely knew, as one of her grandkids without a second thought. I have tried – I hope successfully – to emulate her sentiments as I’ve loved all of my grandkids, no matter what the relationship is on paper.

As I’ve listened to her stories over the years, I’ve learned a lot about this exceptional woman. She has always tackled life head on without fear. She grew up in a small town in Indiana, but when her life took her to Chicago, she didn’t flinch; she learned to drive in Chicago. She was accepted at a southern university to study music (Kentucky?), but turned that down to attend Purdue because she couldn’t imagine life that far away from her family.

She met her husband while working as a secretary at U.S. Steel. The handsome man noticed her and wanted to ask her out, but he was too shy. So he had a buddy tell her that Rex McLain wanted to take her out on a date.

“Well if Rex McLain wants to take me out on a date,” she said firmly, “then he can ask me himself.”

He did, and they were married a few months later. The marriage would last 50-some years until hiswilma wedding death, and result in four wonderful and very successful children.

As you would expect, when someone lives to be 99, the course isn’t always smooth. Her kids didn’t necessarily take paths she anticipated. Her grandkids provided her their share of worries. But in the end, she accepted everything – and all of them – with typical grace and love.

When I spend time with her, it is easier to understand my own husband. Stubborn. Smart. Kind. Honest. Loyal.

Don’t try to tell her what to do, because the more you push her one way, the more likely she is to go the other. Just like Bill. That’s why it was her idea to sell the family home a few years after Rex passed away and move to a senior retirement community. Everyone gave a great sigh of relief, but it would have been useless to try to talk her into that situation before she was ready. She knew exactly what she was doing.

wilma 2014She is beautiful at 99, just as she has been her whole life.  But what makes her beautiful comes from deep within her. She has a beautiful soul.