My grandma

In less than a week, our second little boy will be here.  I didn't ever expect that I would be having a child at 31.  I figured that I would have had that stage of my life done a few years earlier, but here I am with an almost 18 month old and one on the way.  With the back issues I have, this time has been a little bit more of a struggle than the first time around.  As I was trying to take it easy this morning, I got to thinking about something... my grandma. 

Although she has been gone for quite a while now, I still think of the strength this lady had in her.  Standing under 5 foot by the time she was 80, she still had all the spirit you could imagine in someone one fourth her age.

One of the things about her that will never cease to amaze me is the number of children she raised.  My dad was the youngest boy of eleven, with one sister younger than him.  Grandma had my dad one day after her 40th birthday.  I can't imagine having a newborn at 40 or having another one a couple years later, but she did. 

She managed to stretch meals to feed this full household.  Which I know caused some confusion for my dad when he married my mom.  The first time she made meatloaf, he said there was too much meat to it.  Over the years, grandma's meatloaf had been more of a bread load to allow for everyone to get enough. 

I guess at times when my son is having a bad day or I'm not feeling so well, it helps to think back to the struggles she faced from surviving the Great Depression to raising all those kids and everything in between.