Celebrating 90

Everyone was done eating in the fellowship hall.
The candles had been blown out.  Presents opened.
And the ladies got to work.
I don't know how it is in other places but in small country communities, when the ladies get to work in the kitchen, it's a little more than just work.
It's relationship.
I saw them busy as bees, wrapping up leftovers, washing dishes, wiping counters.
And laughing or talking just as they have over a lifetime.
These women who are cousins, with the same grandparents who sent out nine children into this world  to work and raise families.
There have been seasons, to be sure.  Times when they have been together more than others but they are family.
And the one sister still living, the one left of the nine- my grandma.  She will be 90 on Wednesday.

And so we celebrated this one that is dear to us all in the fellowship hall of that little country church that is etched into Ennice, North Carolina and into our minds:  the place of my parents' wedding, choir specials, receptions, anniversary parties, funerals and 90th birthday parties.