my emotions are e v e r y w h e r e . . .so i’m just gonna write my heart out for a sec.

her name was dolores, my grandmother. my favorite memory of her as a kid was watching her sing “New York, New York” wherever there might be a microphone around. who am i kidding, she didn’t need a microphone, just an audience. she had two cats named song and dance, which i always thought was the best. the names, not the cats!  florida was home and she loved disney world and the wizard of oz. if you knew her, you knew never to wear a hat to the dinner table, to never chew toothpicks and you knew scotch + water was her drink. she did the crossword in the newspaper every morning, and she always had the best collection of shoes, earrings, watches and pins. just a few days before she passed, i was having dinner with my mom when she came out of the room with a dainty glass box filled with my grandmother’s earrings and pins. minnie mouse right on top. i was handed my very first heirloom. i’ve waited all my life to have something passed down to me that i actually had genuine attachments to.  i woke up the next morning on halloween and saw my red and white polka-dotted skirt crumpled on the floor and thought oh perfect, i’ll be minnie mouse to hand out candy. little did i know that i’d be dressed as her favorite character, ears that marty hand crafted and all, when my phone would light up reading MOM and i would be finding out that she was gone. up until she was too weak to talk, we spoke every other week unless i was doing some outrageous traveling which she would know about. and even then, i would send her postcards with photos of what i was up to from my phone to her mailbox. she LOVED when i would call with news of something really awesome happening in my career. she was happy that i was in love and getting married, but hearing of my success in my career was what she was always most excited to hear about, and god i loved that so much. i could talk to her for hours about everything i was doing and she’d have no clue what Lightroom or Photoshop was but she’d listen anyway. she didn’t care about the details, she just cared that i was passionate. she was always very adamant about not losing my identity in my relationships. lord knows i’d done enough of that, and she wasn’t shy about letting me know that i was dating the wrong people. i could feel her smile and pride through the phone the day i found out that i was being published in a magazine. i remember the last time i saw her and she was just thrilled that my love for what i do had brought me to florida and gifted us with time together that we might not have had otherwise. she was her own boss in many ways and she loved her independence fiercely and i loved that about her so much. my mom will tell you all day that she lost her herself and who she was when she got married, and i think my grandma saw that and saw the pain it rained down into my moms life and didn’t want that to happen to me. marty was the only guy that she didn’t refer to as That Boy You’re Dating, and that’s because she knew and saw that i had found someone who would walk beside me + through anything.

i hate that she won’t hold our babies in her arms, but i am glad i have stories to tell and advice to pass on. i hate that cancer took her from us. and i hate that she is gone, but i find peace knowing that she is somewhere up there… watching over me, loving me. pushing me. reminding me to be a bad ass. reminding me to be strong when i feel like the weight of the world is crushing me. reminding me to be passionate + pursuant of my dreams. …and wherever she is, i hope there’s sinatra.

xo