For 100 years, mother has stood strong

This Thanksgiving we definitely will be counting blessings - a whole bunch of them - as our mom will turn 100. Fiercely independent, she lives alone but next door. She has the energy of a 50-year-old.

She knows there is nothing more important than peace after living through two world wars. Life was full of promise when she married our dad, a military hero in Eastern Poland. Then the greatest evil the world has known destroyed it all - the barbaric Soviet invasion, the inhumane transport in cattle trains to occupied France, the degradation of slave labor, the desperation of giving birth to her son alone, the agony of seeing her homeland being gifted to Stalin. They had so much and were left with nothing. And yet they did not give up but they worked hard to provide a loving home for us, teaching by example the values of faith, honor, responsibility. So many hardships, so many blessings, we celebrate them all in our mom's incredible 100 years.

Barbara Wroblewski

Wheeling