"Eat your greens and say your prayers." That's what my college friend Evelyn used to say.

That's how I now sign my letters to great Aunt Olga. G + P (our own shorthand) It covers everything. Greens for regularity and prayers for everything else.

Auntie is 101, going on 102 in August. For the past ten years, she's lived at the Countryside Nursing Home in Madison, Nebraska, my mother's hometown. In this small farming community Aunt Olga and Uncle George farmed for over 30 years and raised three children. George died young. Olga has been widowed for over 50 years.

Olga is the last in a long line of children of Lutheran homesteaders in the nation's heartland where farming is a way of life. She's my grandmother's sister. For years, I wrote to my Grandpa Adolph and Grandma Anna, both in their 90s, and residents at the same nursing home located only six miles from where the three were born and lived their entire lives.

Grandpa and Grandma have both been dead for over ten years now. I miss them. It seemed a natural transition-from writing my grandparents to writing Aunt Olga. Same place, same generation. She loves letters, and I love writing them. Olga insists the weekly correspondence from me, my mom Dort and Uncle Ron in Arkansas are the high point of her week. Something to look forward to. "I love getting mail!" she says.

Auntie once milked cows twice a day. Kept an immaculate house. Quilted. Knitted. Crocheted. Rocked the babies. Baked fresh pies every other day. Took care of business. You get the picture. Strong and hardworking.

Today, she sends me hand-tatted bookmarks in the shape of a cross, and writes an encouraging letter to me every week. A physically feeble woman, she has gradually, and gracefully, become "dis-abled" at least in the eyes of some. She's in superb health for someone her age, as the saying goes, but hearing, seeing and walking have become challenges.

Olga loves unconditionally. She chooses to overlook any perceived disability with the intense desire to live the Christian life to the fullest. She's always reminding me that Jesus Christ is in control, and every new day is His gift. She's looking back with thankfulness and forward with hope.

She'll be the first to tell you. It's all about eating greens and saying prayers. And giving thanks for every new day.