The worlds oldest woman
She turned 116 today. Something about this article gives me a real sense of wanting to live... of wanting to be loved this much.
On this afternoon, home is a warm, crowded place full of family. "We are going now, great grandma!" chorus eight-year-old Kengo Tamura and his 10-year-old sister Sachiko, as they hold her hand.
Not longer afterwards, her 17-year-old great granddaughter, Tomoko Kurauchi, arrives, as she does every day after school. Mrs Hongo has a strong bond with Tomoko. The pink nail polish is Tomoko's work.
I never met my great grandmothers that I remember, but I have heard many stories about my paternal paternal and maternal maternal great grandmothers, that I am very much like them in personality and apperance. My father's father's mother came to America with barely a word of english (she spoke gaelic), possibly as young as 12, with a permanent limp due to a broken hip at a young age, and found a job, and a husband, and a life she loved. She may have lived to be over 100, if the babtism records we found in her home village in Ireland were right. My mother's mother was a strong woman, apparently the most beautiful in the area where she lived. She had long red hair, past her waist, and my grandmother remembers helping her heat water and ladle it out so she could wash it before they got running water. My great grandfather wouldnt have plumbing or electricity or even a radio in the house, for fear of lightning.
I wonder, with all that has changed in the last 100 years... what will I see in my life, even if I life half of that?
She turned 116 today. Something about this article gives me a real sense of wanting to live... of wanting to be loved this much.
On this afternoon, home is a warm, crowded place full of family. "We are going now, great grandma!" chorus eight-year-old Kengo Tamura and his 10-year-old sister Sachiko, as they hold her hand.
Not longer afterwards, her 17-year-old great granddaughter, Tomoko Kurauchi, arrives, as she does every day after school. Mrs Hongo has a strong bond with Tomoko. The pink nail polish is Tomoko's work.
I never met my great grandmothers that I remember, but I have heard many stories about my paternal paternal and maternal maternal great grandmothers, that I am very much like them in personality and apperance. My father's father's mother came to America with barely a word of english (she spoke gaelic), possibly as young as 12, with a permanent limp due to a broken hip at a young age, and found a job, and a husband, and a life she loved. She may have lived to be over 100, if the babtism records we found in her home village in Ireland were right. My mother's mother was a strong woman, apparently the most beautiful in the area where she lived. She had long red hair, past her waist, and my grandmother remembers helping her heat water and ladle it out so she could wash it before they got running water. My great grandfather wouldnt have plumbing or electricity or even a radio in the house, for fear of lightning.
I wonder, with all that has changed in the last 100 years... what will I see in my life, even if I life half of that?
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