These hands are 95 years old.

This summer, I asked my grandmother to tell me about this picture of her at 22.

As she touched the image as though she could feel the raised lace of her collar, she told me, “I bought this dress uptown in Alva, Oklahoma, with Aunt Laura, whose farm south of Punkin Holler, I visited in the summers.” This was the dress she wore when she married Grandpa on a weekend’s leave in Wichita Falls, Texas, on October 30, 1942. And this was the picture she had made a few months later, after she took the solitary bus journey back home to her parents’ farm after sending her husband off to England to fight in the Second World War.

I’m sure holding this photograph brought back a rush of memories and emotions just as tangible. I am blessed to still have her, her stories, her laughs, her sass, her prayers, her love. Happy birthday Zetta Pauline! ~shared by @kurlykk