Thinking About the Future

In 2000, I visited Sherman, Texas, to interview Susie Mae Griffin Edwards, my maternal grandmother's first cousin. At 103, she was clear as a bell, healthy, lived alone, and needed only routine housekeeping and personal assistance from her next door neighbor.

After lunch, she provided a complete and clear oral history of her strand of the Griffin family. As I approach 65 and medicare and full retirement, I think of her often and hope that her genes managed to make it to my dna.