More than one hundred

"I know that I will cry when I have to go back to Chicago. I might be saying goodbye for ever to her". I listened with a smile to what Maria had to tell me about our grand mother.

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She spent a chunk of her childhood going through illnesses. A doctor finally said to his father that he had to move her from the seaside. There was no drug that could save her in 1907. It worked. The medicine was a drier weather. The secret of her long life, she always reminded me, was to spend the nights with her windows open. Even during the coldest days of the winter. Who knows.

She now has 17 grandchildren and 14 great grand children (and two more –to my knowledge- that are coming).

She falls asleep on her chair, like a baby. Then she wakes up and asks for her favorite magazine because she wants to read.

- Do you know who I am – I say
- You are the oldest – she replies
- And what is my name?
- You are Luis.

And she falls asleep again.

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"I take your point but I don't agree. Abuela's birthday should be a party to celebrate life. A party in which we all have fun and laugh. No room for cries."

Our grand mother is one hundred years and five days old today.