Just Let It Go

It doesn’t matter, in the end.

The size of your house. The quality of your clothes or car. That petty disagreement you can’t get over. The title behind your name. The wrinkles around your eyes or lining your forehead. Those fancy vacations (or lack thereof). The number on the scale or in your bank account. Your awards or accolades. The resentment you’ve kept buried deep in your heart.

Just let it go.

None of it matters, really.

What matters are the people.

What matters are the relationships. The connections built over decades, some hard fought and largely flawed.

What matters is the making of US—the people mixed together with all that love. All those memories. One loud, imperfect family left behind.

What matters is chicken salad and homemade ice cream spread on plastic tables in eastern Nebraska celebrating a life. What matters are children with wet swimsuits cramming a few cookies into their mouths before running back to the pool. What matters are rounds of cornhole or those ear-splitting screams when someone finally gets an answer right in Family Trivia. What matters are the stories, all of us laughing and crying in turn. What matters is hugging one another long and close with tears mingling on our cheeks.

What matters is how we remember her…

Remember her hands kneading dough for cinnamon rolls or kolaches?

Remember her teddy bear obsession?

Remember how she loved babies (and squishing their chubby little feet) and violets (and talking to them every day to help them grow)?

What matters, in the end, is that she loved her family.

THIS family.

Imperfect, old, ordinary US.

Love is all that matters, really.

(My grandma on her 92nd birthday--July 20, 2022--just 2 days before she passed, kissing her great, great granddaughter, Navi goodbye)