Going off to school!

You might not have met a nonagenarian who says, "I love being 98!" 

But this is what Nana said to Day--in spite of a few physical challenges that began four years ago when she totaled her car:

"One foot points to Lawrenceville, the other toward Buford," she says of her crooked leg that has gradually turned outward since the crash.  

Before, and even for a while after the accident, she continued to walk--three miles a day in her early nineties. Now she needs a cane or an arm to walk steadily.  She rides her bike on the porch twenty minutes a day. 

Due to circulation issues in her feet and legs, she's getting used to support hose.

She still drives to the beauty shop, church, and nearby stores.  She says to me, "This is your car, but you can't have it until I'm through with it." She wonders if she can still get her drivers' license when she's 100.

I always call her when I first get up.  This morning, she said, "I'm so excited I feel like I'm going off to school." Her sense of humor isn't going anywhere. 

She even laughs about her feet.  Showing Day and me her hammer toes one night, she said, "Let's play 'This Little Piggy Went to Market' and look at these toes!  These little piggies went to market and got all beat up!"

So if you haven't met a nonagenarian who loves being one, let me introduce you to my amazing mama as she makes the kind of move we might all be lucky enough to make if we live into our nineties. The body may play tricks on us, but--if can keep our minds intact--we can still be who we are, just needing a little help with the inconvenient physical changes!  

As I tell her every day, she is modeling for all us younger people accepting the changes when they come.

Here we are at the Presbyterian Village in Watkinsville looking at one of the apartments and talking to Edward, the chef there.  All we have to do now is await an opening on the third floor.