Lehigh Football Nation

How do you summarize a 96 year life? You can't. But you try. Such a long life is, by itself, extraordinary. So much has happened in that one life that one entire book, sometimes multiple volumes of a book, can't even cover it. My grandmother, who died in her sleep a little more than a week ago, was one such person. She passed away, quietly, and, by all accounts, without pain.  Death is never a complete surprise when it occurs in someone that age, though as soon as you hear of it, you feel the inevitable guilt that all survivors feel. "Why didn't I visit more? Go out that one last time to see her? To share in her stories?"  As I heard of her passing, I, too, felt those same pangs of guilt, the same dead feeling inside when someone who loved you, and inspired you - even from across the country - passes away. Those feelings would eventually give way to a celebration of her life.