When people ask me what my favorite pics are in my career, I always explain that they are of my Nana. The reason is because she was the last parental figure to die and the only one in my family to ever see me succeed. My mother died when I was 8, perhaps that is why pictures are the most important treasures in my life…over all the diamonds and cars and money; it is the pictures that last and tell there own stories long after we have all faded away.
Nana would have turned 116 today. She died at 102. She lived through pretty much everything like…electricity and space travel and telephones…you’ll remember like the ones with an operator that you sat down and held and dialed with your fingers. She saw me arrive, was there when I grew into  adulthood with her writing me letters weekly as I was off to boarding school at 17. She threw her walker away when she walked down the aisle when Brian and I married 28 years ago and she was there when the children were born. Neither my mom or my dad or my other grandparents ever saw James Edward and that is why her loving hands who I held and played with at church, that taught me how to do needlepoint and basic math…these hands that had seen the world transformed are my inspiration each and every day to be that kind of person in the lives of my children and of yours. She always held me up and gave me her best advice and if anyone ever tried to cross me she was the first, as a mama bear should be; to defend til death my honor. I miss her everyday but today I celebrate who she was and what of her still very much lives within me! Happy Birthday my Dearest NANA!