In her honor: Why I’ll always allow my heart to spill onto my sleeve.

Words. The right words.

I’ve been hesitant to share this feeling. But even more hesitant to feel it myself.

My grandmother Elaine was a very elegant woman. She justly so, took pride in her beauty and composure.

But I have this hunch that she was more of a spitfire like me. Like me, I think she felt things massively in her heart and believed in things like the stars and true love.

I also think somewhere along the way she learned to be quiet about those things.

That in her life she met loss and pain and somehow learned to keep her composure about those things.

And so growing up she was a wonderful grandmother. I loved spending weekends with her and making breakfast together on Sunday mornings. Setting the table just so.

But there’s so much I didn’t get to know about her as Elaine. There’s so many things she didn’t share and so many things I didn’t know to ask until it was too late.

I wish I could have known a bit more about her heart, her dreams and her pain.

I wish I could have known the way she had fallen in love with my grandfather. And the way it felt for her to lose him far too soon.

I wish I could have hugged her as she told me.

But for her I can do this.

I can continue to be unafraid to share the depths of my heart.

I can live in a way where I never have to make myself smaller.

I can be too much. I can be ridiculous. I can be a goofball. I can fall apart. I can ask for the help and love that I need.

All while keeping my composure, because that I learned from her.

To my gorgeous Grandma, I love you. May your soul be as free as ever.