That’s how minutes there are in a year: Five hundred twenty-five thousand and six hundred. My grandmother has lived through the 525,600 eighty-five times. We recently traveled to her small town for a family gathering celebrating her life — all her living children (Grandma had 6 kids, including my father), some grandkids, and even great-grands.

I talk to Grandma by phone weekly; leading up to her birthday she would tell me how excited she was for it. She always sounded the same when she said it though; I wasn’t sure she was actually excited or just saying that.

The birthday party was on a Saturday; we got there Friday and visited her home. Grandma told us that on several nights that week she could barely sleep because she was so happy for everyone expected to be there. Hanging at her house before the party on Saturday with all the relatives who’d come to town, Grandma had come alive. Laughing, joking and engaging in ways she doesn’t do in our brief weekly conversations; in a way that I only remember from the very-oft family gatherings at her and my (since passed) Grandfather’s home in Philadelphia back when I was really small. Back then were were drinks, food, lots of James Brown music playing, and people. Always so many people around.