JOPLIN, Mo- Last Sunday marked the five year anniversary of the Joplin tornado, and one 95-year-old Joplin woman is sharing her story of survival through poetry.

Tonight Brad Douglas from KODE talks to her and shows how age is just a number.

Laura Brown maybe in her 95th year, but don’t let that fool you. She’s as active as ever.

“If you don’t use it, you loose it,” says Laura.

She’s recently pickedl up a new hobby and that’s writing poems.

“Well when I can’t sleep, that’s what I do.”

She writes about what she loves, so of course there’s a fishing poem.

“I was just a lad when I begged and plead with dad. Let’s go fishing.”

And her other love is Joplin.

“I’ve lived in Joplin 95 years and I love it. So I had to write something about it.”

And she wrote about the Joplin tornado and her grandaughter Gretchen loves it.

“I can’t read it. Can’t even think about it becasue it makes me cry. When you read it I cried,” says Gretchen Boykin.

So here it is.

“My beautiful Joplin, where are you now? All i can find is a dog and a cow. I’ve searched everywhere I’ve looked up and down. But my beautiful Joplin could not be found.”

And Laura is a survivor, she went through that Joplin tornado. When the storm hit she got in her closet and then realized in the middle of the storm, she needed to use the bathroom.

“When you gotta go you gotta go,” says Laura.

Her house was destoryed but she amazingly has survived and they’ve rebuilt. And now she has more time to write poems and give advice about how to live a long life.

“You don’t drink you don’t smoke and you fish and that’ll make you be 95.”

And she’s not done living yet.

“I saw the little lady that was 106 and she looked pretty good to me so I’m hoping I make it.”