Today, we celebrate our mom and grams.

She’s the thread that’s held this big, beautiful family together. The quiet glue in the cracks. The soul of our home, the keeper of our stories, and honestly, the hug we all need at the end of a long day.

She’s the gentle thread that has stitched us together, generation after generation. She is the soul of this homestead. The keeper of our stories, our secrets, and our holiday recipes. She is always the soft place to land at the end of a long, hard day.

She gives the kind of hugs that remind you that everything’s gonna be okay—even if it’s not right now. That’s her superpower. She’s the one we go to when we need truth told kindly, or when we just want someone to listen without fixing a thing.

I’ve watched her love with her whole heart for my whole life. I have felt that love every  day of my life.I watched her pour it into my kids, into our whole family, and now I am blessed to watch her pour that same love into my grandsons, her great grandsons. She doesn’t ask for anything in return. She never has. She just shows up—again and again—with open arms and an open heart.

She’s the woman who never once took a vacation just for herself. Not one beach getaway, not one spa weekend, until us girls forced it. Every single trip she ever took was to be near her grandbabies. That was her paradise—sticky fingers, sippy cups, and toddler giggles. And when it wasn’t enough just to visit, she packed up my dad and her whole life and moved across the country so she could be part of their everyday life! All of the sporting events, the lost teeth, the scraped knees, and the bedtime stories.

She’s the grandma who belongs to everyone.

There isn’t a teenager that was a friend of one of her kids or grandkids, who hasn’t wandered into her kitchen, opened her fridge without asking, and found both a snack and a safe place. She is a soft landing, a refuge, and sometimes the only adult a kid felt they could trust. And when the storms came, and oh, did they come, she didn’t back away. She leaned in. She showed up when it was hard to support them. When the world went dark, she became their light.

She’s done the same for me. She jumped on the first plane she could find and came running to hold me on the night I said I couldn’t live anymore. She didn’t panic, or at least she didn’t show it. She dropped everything and came running. She wrapped her arms around me while my world fell to pieces—and you told me I would rise. That I would be stronger. That I would live, and she was right. 

There’s something youthful in her, too. Even now, she’ll laugh so hard she cries, dance in the kitchen when no one’s watching (or even when they are), and light up when the little ones run into the room like they’re the best gift she’s ever been given. And truthfully, she makes us feel like gifts to be seen, known, and treasured.

And now, even in her later years, when most would be slowing down, settling in, finally putting their feet up, she’s still giving. She’s once again moved her entire life for her family. She helped purchase a home not for herself, but for a future she won’t get to see with her own eyes, for great-great grandchildren she may never hold. A home that will become a legacy. A place where her story will live on in the soil, in the walls, in the laughter of children who will grow up under her roof, even if they never get to sit on her lap. She tends this land with tireless hands and a joyful heart, creating spaces where her love will echo for generations. Gardens, art rooms, warm kitchens, every corner touched by her intention, every inch an offering of love. A million little things that added up to a legacy.

She is our matriarch.
Our Compass
Our soft place to land.
The one who made it possible for us to grow roots and still reach for the sky.

You are the foundation we stand on.
You are the warmth that still radiates through our lives.
And you are, without a doubt, the greatest gift God ever gave this family.

Happy Birthday!