Well February - death month - has claimed another victim, Alice Horton, Grams, of Days of our Lives, in real life Frances Reid who died this week at the age of 95. Alice was the matriach of the family. She started the role in 1965. I started to watch in 1997. It was after the car accident. I was getting around with a walker, able to take care of myself, when the phone rang and Maria asked if Rachael could hang out with me that day. Rachael wasn't feeling good, and Maria could not miss work. She assured me Rachael who was 11 would be no trouble. And she wasn't. We were watching television when she asked if she could watch a show called Days of Our Lives. And that's how I got hooked.

Days had at that time more than 8,000 episodes under its belt. Alice was well established as the grandmother who doled out advice and her donuts to an adoring family. Alice had been married to Dr. Tom Horton (MacDonald Carey) who died in real life in 1994 but they still show reruns of him and Alice and of course, each show starts with his voice saying "Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives".

In 1997 when I started to watch the show was really going all out. One actress was playing four parts, Kristen Black (pretending to be pregnant to fool her husband), Susan Blake, a plain woman with buck teeth who actually was pregnant (impregnanted by Stefano who was dressed like Elvis because Susan was in love with Elvis Presley), Sister Mary, a nun, and Sister Mary's brother, who looked just like the other three but had a mustach. Who wouldn't get hooked on this show? Susan had Marlena (her husband's true love) locked up in the wine cellar. Bo was seaching the bayou for Swamp Girl and his wife Hope thought she was a Princess. Rachael patiently explained all this to me and I began to watch every day. In fact it became the highlight of every day.

I noticed last year that Alice hadn't been on since Christmas 2008. She was referred to often: Grams is taking a nap, or Grams is baking cookies, Grams is visiting a friend. But no Alice was in the show. Then the news of her death with a review of some of the early shows when she was really the star. All through the film the song "Always" was playing. This was Alice and Tom's song, many scenes of them singing together, "I'll be loving you always, with a love that's true always." I cried like a baby watching Alice grow old within minutes, going from young and beautiful to gray hair and feeble. That's what I mean by hooked. You get to really know these characters , as well if not better than your own family.

The thing that I love most about this show is the continuance of characters and of course the play with time. Elvis, Stefano's son who should really be about 13, is a regular character today, married with two children. And last year his wife faked pregnancy just like the one so many years ago. And the viewer accepts it. Accepts every terrible thing that they see: people buried alive, implants placed in their brains, poison apples and of course pregnancy after pregnancy. After watching this show for 13 years, day in and day out, I think you can accept almost anything life hands you. And that's why I watch Days and am proud to say it. But who will replace Grams and bake the donuts? I think Maggie who just lost her husband, runs a restaurant and has a drinking problem.