Being Seventy-Eight...

Seventy-eight years!  Wow!  (Just pretend there are 78 candles on that cake!)

What is "78?"  It's a prety big number.  It's the number of years I have been privileged to live on this earth.  It is the number of candles on my Birthday cake.

I am so grateful for those 78 years!  I have been blessed with my greatest blessing... most of my memories intact.  All it takes is a word, a picture, a smell, a book, a smile, a face, a place, or anything familiar to call up to my memory the vivid pictures of the past.  I am grateful for that.

I recently received a telephone call from a friend I have known since I was 3-years-old!  We shared many memories during that call and a lot of laughter.  It was a wonderful day.  Another friend remarked on Facebook that we shared memories from our childhood of 70 years ago!  We remembered our years of dancing at Mahri's School of Dance in Santa Monica, CA and I smiled with those memories.

I live by the ocean on the coast of Oregon and the smell of the salt air mixed with fish takes me back to my childhood in Santa Monica (which is also by the ocean in California.)  I had so many happy memories back then.  Days spent on the beach tanning, swimming in the Pacific, walking the boardwalk or the Pier.  My favorite was riding on the Carousel on the Santa Monica Pier!

I recently attended a reunion of several friends from my Church in Santa Monica.  Some of them I did not recognize, but others came quickly to the forefront of my memory.  The faces have aged, but the eyes remain the same!  Reunions are amazing.

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And so, as I celebrate another year, create another memory, eat a few more bites of a wonderful Birthday cake and live to love another day, I share my gratitude with all whom I have contact with on this day.  Thank you for being a part of my life and helping me to build more memories.

Here's to another 22 years, when I reach 100 and, hopefully, my mind will still be as sharp as it is today!  We shall see!