Happy Birthday to Tatjana.

My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, was born one hundred and fourteen years ago today. She died not long after her seventy-fifth birthday.

I have a special attachment to Tatjana because she and I shared a bedroom when I lived in Suburban Chicago. She also died from ovarian cancer. That's the disease that's been undulating through my world for the last three years.

This was Tatjana's favorite photo of herself. She hung it on our bedroom wall, above her bed, next to the photo of the twins.

Every portrait of Tatjana speaks to me about her experiences. But it was this one that first sparked the feeling that she was looking at me.

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1939. Tatjana casts her melancholy eyes for a formal portrait.