A friend sent me this...

My grandma passed away about a week and a half ago.

She was 108 years old.

If you’ve followed my writing or my work for any amount of time, you probably know how important she was to me. She wasn’t just my grandma,  she was a reference point. A compass. Someone I quietly measured myself against in the best way.

She lived through the Great Depression and World War II before she was even 30.

Because of that, she knew real hardship. Not the abstract kind-  the kind that reshapes how you see the world. And yet, what always struck me was how much joy she carried. Not forced optimism or denial. Just a steady, grounded ability to move through life with lightness even when things were heavy.

When she was 70, she lost her son and she cared for him the months before as he was dying. As a parent, I can’t even begin to imagine that kind of pain. And while I know she grieved deeply, she didn’t let that loss harden her. She didn’t avoid it either. She did the work. She showed up. And then she kept moving forward and  not coldly, but with a quiet understanding that this is what love sometimes requires.

That posture- strength without bitterness, grief without collapse- is something I’ve carried with me my entire life.

She was also endlessly resourceful.

She didn’t wait to be “qualified” to try things. She learned to paint in her forties and created stunning pastels and oil paintings that still hang in our family’s homes. She refinished furniture that is now treasured and fought over. She made placemats by hand that rival anything you could buy in a store.

She would see something and simply think, I could do that.
And then she would.

There was no self-doubt masquerading as realism. No waiting for permission. Just a belief in her own ability to figure things out.

And maybe most importantly, she was a true matriarch.

She didn’t wait to be invited into her relationships. She initiated. She called. She planned lunches. She brought people together. Even into her hundreds, until her dementia became more challenging around 105, she was still actively choosing connection.

Because of that, she had deep, meaningful relationships with her three remaining sons, her ten grandchildren, and her twenty-one great-grandchildren.

She didn’t leave closeness to chance.

Something else I’ve been sitting with since she passed: I’ve never cared much about my own legacy in the traditional sense. I don’t care if my name is remembered long after I’m gone. That hasn’t changed.

What has become very clear to me is how deeply I care about carrying her legacy forward.

Her resilience.
Her joy.
Her resourcefulness.
Her willingness to initiate love and connection.

Since she’s been gone, I feel a quiet but strong sense of responsibility,  not to preserve her name, but to live in a way that honors who she was.

That feels like the truest form of legacy there is.

Thanks for letting me share this with you today.