The Body: Finding Wisdom
	1910 to 2009.  Ninety-nine.  A special number, a special age, a special meaning.  In 1990, her already aged face said she would live to be one hundred, preferably older, but one hundred was certainly a satisfying number.  Now, as that one hundredth year draws near, we sit in anticipation of life, or the possibility of death.  Both linger very close to the surface and either one can manifest as reality.  At ninety-nine, she cherishes a life well-lived, the wisdom gained, and the stories told that she can still pass on to her relatives. -- Delphine, Della for short, is my grandmother; she lives in the same house she raised her children in; if walls could talk, they would spin a tale of laughter, singing, joy, tears, pain, dedication, and love.  They would share a world of the past that is seldom experienced in this current, fast-paced world. -- Growing up in Prince Edward Island, affectionately known as P.E.I., off the Canadian coast, she enjoyed the rural simplicities of farm life – chasing chickens, picking vegetables in the garden, cleaning the kitchen while her mother swept up the dirt and dust that all the children brought in after a day of wrestling on the ground and generally being messy.  Often times, Della didn’t know how her mother, Sophia, kept up with all the children; there were 10 children all together in the family -- 5 brothers and 4 sisters. Della even participated in some rough-housing even though she wasn’t supposed to, being a lady.  She’d run around with her brothers, chasing the chickens and laughing as the chickens would get tired and promptly stuff their heads in the bushes on the side of the house.  Raising chickens was awfully fun and quite amusing in her younger years.  Even at a young age she would watch as her mother dutifully plucked all the feathers from a chicken that would soon be a Sunday meal.  Life was easy, as well as difficult – Della had to pull her weight in the large family just like everyone else did.  She had to cook, clean, wash her younger brothers in the water basin, pick the vegetables, and listen to her father even if she didn’t want to and thought he was being unfair.  She took solace in her favorite younger sister, Emma, who often helped her equally with the chores and various tasks of managing a farmhouse in the 1920s.  Even though she spent her whole childhood and young adult life in the calm and nurturing place that P.E.I. offered, she wanted out – there was an intense longing in her gray eyes, one of adventure and far-off horizons.  A future. -- When Delphine was 25, she married my grandfather, Cyrus.  The wedding took place in a small church in a quaint town.  Still in P.E.I., Della wanted her wonderful family to see her moment of utmost happiness before leaving the island and going to America, where her dreams would be realized for her children and her children’s children.