The summer my grandmother turned 90 years old, I turned 23, our birthdays are 10 days apart. My friends made me a homemade cake from a box mix that had lyrics from the Blink-182 song “What’s My Age Again”. My grandmother’s store-bought cake said “Happy Birthday Greatest Mom”. She raised her children, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren.

I never knew her husband and she will never know my children. She is close to me when I crochet and when I eat those small boxes of cereal from the grocery store. I think of her often.

Update 2023: Last summer, after turning 94, my grandmother passed away in the same hospital I was born in. She was surrounded by her three children, all of her grandchildren and her two great grandchildren. I had never seen someone die before that. I still think of her often.