Yes, it is a thing. Evidently.

I’m not expecting cards or flowers, though.

Gorgeous grandmothers or at least women-of-a-certain-age have always intrigued me. My Aunt Clella McAffee, for instance. She wasn’t my aunt, but a dear church lady who had left our small town to live in Kansas City years before. Every few months, she glided home on a Greyhound bus for a visit. Her slightly blue hair looked like an Easter bonnet. Pink rouge highlighted her impressive cheekbones, and powder softened a face full of wrinkles and lines. She wore a fur stole to church. And she spoke in tones that I considered cultured.

Or, Callie Petree. Another church lady who wore bright lipstick and carried huge handbags. I remember her as bold and funny and rather loud. But, I’m not sure that is true. It is more of an impression, probably than a clear memory. Even so, she became the model for my imaginary friend Madge in Thirty Days to Glory and the books that followed.

All of the Glory Circle Sisters in my novels came from memories of Gorgeous Grandmothers.

Mine or someone else’s. I’ve long admired the women who have given their lives to bring up children or educate them, to keep homes, to care for friends and strangers, and to wash the feet of the saints.

Many of you fit into that same category. So, here’s to us. The women of a certain age who remain gorgeous in all the most important ways. That inward beauty the Bible speaks of, which often bursts out in our laughter, our conversations, and our slightly tinted cheeks!