We got to Grandma’s new home at the lodge about 8 last night, and she was already getting ready for bed. We didn’t stay long. We’d taken a slice of fresh, warm apple pie along for her, and Everett perched on her bed while Grandma and I sat in her two rockers.

Twice she touched his knee and asked Everett, “Who are you again?”

“Everett,” he said, smiling slightly.

“That’s what I thought,” she said. “You’ve changed so much since last time.”

Indeed he has. He towers over his great-gran now (so do I, and he’s as tall as me) and if you don’t see him for a few days, you can see a difference in him. I took this picture as we were leaving, just before I hugged Grandma goodbye and she held up her little face for a kiss.

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This morning I was awake before Emil and Everett called me up to the porch for a faceful of boy smooches, but I didn’t go upstairs. I’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour last night, read cowboy murder mystery Holmes on the Range for a while, and had no problem falling asleep. But I laid there after waking and thought, what do I have to look forward to today? I imagined what I had planned and it didn’t make me eager to get up 'n' at 'er. Yet if anyone asked me, I’d say I love my life, and mean it.