4 generations...(one's behind the camera)

I caught this picture the other night at my birthday celebration and knew immediately that it was blog worthy.  Here we have my 85 year old "Omi", newly bald from radiation and chemo treatments for lung cancer (she's officially cancer free- for the record), my mama ("Nana"), and my youngest daughter.

  The reasons people adopt are numerous and varied...and my own reasons are complex but a small piece of me has always wondered if the longing to adopt wasn't somehow genetic.  My Omi is German--she speaks with a heavy accent even though she has lived in the States for many years.  Before she married an American soldier and moved to the US- she adopted and fostered several children in Germany...children she still claims as her own even though they were practically adults when she took them in.  My Omi has had an amazing life...many hardships and trials but triumphs as well.  She is tough.  She is STRONG.  She's not a whiner and she certainly never says "Why me?"  She has taught me MUCH about perseverance.  And whatever part of her that made her feel the need to look out for others and take care of others...  even in the midst of her own struggles so long ago...that is her legacy to me.  She taught me to sew when I was in college...I owe my talent for that  to her as well...and her impatience for self pity and whining---yep- I got that from her, too.   For a woman I did not get to spend much time with growing up---she sure has given me some valuable gifts.  And I am so thankful for the gift she has been given in her new cancer free diagnosis--several more years with her grands and great grands...time to make more memories and pass down more legacy.