One candle is sufficient. I am legally blind.

Thus on November 6th I shall be 85, such an advanced age that people assume it indicates some accrued wisdom, but it really doesn’t; weird genes and happenstance and tenacity account for most of me. I make no claims of wisdom with good reason. I am the same college freshman who, in 1945 when her instructor made a really bad pun and then said, “Open the window!” actually rose from her seat, plodded across the Lecture Hall to the window, and opened it to a roar of laughter.

Hence, in gratitude for my singular life, I offer thanks:

For my longevity.

For what little eyesight was returned to me after complete darkness descended, so that I might live independently and so I still — in a fractured way — see the world.

Thanks for my brilliant, talented husband – humorous and kind, who died much too young – who believed I was a writer long before I ever sold a manuscript and who fostered my writing career.

Thanks for the forty-seven years I have been teaching English at Borough of Manhattan Community College in the City University of New York, a job I still love and do.

Thanks for our three notable, eccentric children and the five amazing and wonderful grandchildren who enrich my life and make my days delightful.

Thanks to the students who accommodate to an aged, handicapped teacher with thoughtfulness and alacrity and whose incredible originality and vitality energize me.

My list is long as my life has been long.

I am, indeed, lucky!