1924.

My grandma turned 84-years-old yesterday. EIGHTY-FOUR.

I can hardly believe it, because if you asked me, not that anyone does, I'd say 60. Maybe 71. But 84 seems unfathomable because in my mind grandma is timeless. Ageless. Immortal.

Of course I know that's not true, and we definitely had our scares in the last six months, but 84 just seems so much older than reality.

I had lunch with grandma today. Grilled cheese sandwiches and tall glasses of milk, which is really no different than something I might make for myself, but it's different when she's involved. It's my childhood again, only this time I drink my milk from a real glass, not a green, plastic cup.

I brought her flowers, she sent me home with zucchini bread. It's an even trade. And frankly, she would've sent me home with zucchini bread anyway because it's what she does. What she's always done, even at 84. The flowers were simply extra incentive.

It's been six years since grandpa died, and while it's impossible to erase the memory of her saying goodbye at the head of a casket, weak in the knees, and heart, she's still a strong woman. Strong in the way 84 years of experience will make you.

Sure, she needs her driveway shoveled and her garage door fixed when it refuses to function, but she'll be damned if she misses a hair appointment or a manicure. And we'd have to all but pick her up and carry her out of the home she built with grandpa all those years ago. It's her house, and she's not leaving it.

To Hell! grandpa might say to that.

And so she stays put. Hopefully for several more years. Because she might be 84, but you'd never guess it.