At 61 I’m rewarded daily with connections sharing career, child rearing and the daily routine stories of my 6 children. Connecting has morphed from letters & telephone to text & social media…still I touch base weekly with most of my kids and teen grandchildren. Both generation call me GranMedea & it makes me feel like a queen. When we see each other face-to-face, I see the joy in the interactions, laughter & teasing , family retelling jokes it’s magical.

The biggest lesson that motherhood has taught me is that my mother did the best she could with what she had. In the moment you become a parent when you become a mother, you start going back to those tools that worked for you as a child and applying them to your children and that’s essentially the best part of raising my children was to raise the best parts in them that my parents instilled in me.

What’s $20,000 I would take all of the family that are available to come (it’s difficult to get 21 people on the same schedule ) and rent a home on a beach along the Gulf of America or Corpus Christi. At one point or another my children have been to those places with me and I’d love for us to all go enjoying them in the same household before my husband and I are too old to travel.