For Those We Carry: Honoring the Lives That Shaped Us

Today is April 10th.

It is my sister Gloria’s birthday.

She would have been sixty-three years old today.

I have been thinking about her all week — about what she would look like now, what she would be doing with her life, what she would think of the world we are living in. I have been thinking about the things she never got to see and the things she knew that I still carry with me. And I have been thinking, as I always do around this time of year, about my grandmother too — who came into this world on April 2nd, 1911, and left it on May 1st, 2009, having lived ninety-eight extraordinary years.

April holds a lot of love for me. And a lot of missing.

I imagine you know what that feels like. If you are reading this at this stage of life, you almost certainly carry someone too. Maybe several someones. And I wanted to write today not just for myself — but for all of us who love people we can no longer call.

The Ones We Carry

By the time we reach our 50s and 60s and beyond, most of us have experienced loss in layers. Parents. Siblings. Friends. Sometimes children. Sometimes people taken far too soon, in ways that still do not make complete sense no matter how many years pass.

The culture we live in does not always make room for that grief. We are expected to move through it quickly, to be strong, to bounce back. And so many of us learn to carry it quietly — present but unspoken, tucked just beneath the surface of our daily lives.

But here is what I have come to believe: the grief does not shrink. What happens over time is that we grow around it. We build lives large enough to hold both the loss and the love simultaneously. We learn to carry both things at once.

And that is not weakness. That is one of the most profound forms of human strength.

Memory Is an Act of Love

I want to say something that I do not think we say enough: remembering someone we have lost is not the opposite of moving forward. It is something we do alongside living. Memory is how we keep them present in our decisions, in our values, in the way we treat people and move through the world.

Memory is not a wound. Memory is a bridge.

My grandmother showed me what it looks like to carry a century with grace. She lived through history that none of us can fully imagine — and she did it without bitterness, with a quiet dignity that I am still learning from. She did not lecture me about strength. She demonstrated it, every single day, for ninety-eight years.

Gloria showed me something different but equally essential: that life is precious and not promised. That the people who know you before you became who you are hold a particular and irreplaceable place. That a sister is a whole category of love that nothing else quite covers.

Both of them live in me. In the choices I make, in the things I care about, in this very work I do to serve this community every week. They shaped me. And that means in some real way, they are still here.

Keeping Them Alive for Those Who Come After Us

For those of us in the 55-plus community, we sit at a unique place in our families: we are often the ones who hold the stories. The ones who remember what someone was like before the grandchildren were born. The ones who know the full picture.

That makes us the keepers. And the most important work we can do is to make sure those stories do not stop with us.

Here are a few ways I try to keep the people I love alive — not just in my own heart, but in the hearts of the people who come after me:

• Tell a story at the table. Say their name. Bring them into the conversation. You do not need a special occasion — any meal, any gathering is the right moment to say ‘your great-grandmother used to…’ and begin.
• Create a ritual in their honor. Plant something. Cook their recipe. Light a candle on their birthday. Small, consistent rituals are how love outlasts a lifetime.
• Write it down. A simple notebook of memories — stories, dates, the things they said, the way their laughter sounded — is one of the most precious things you can leave behind. Not for yourself. For the grandchildren who will someday want to know.
• Say their name. There is research that confirms what most of us already feel intuitively: grieving people want others to say the name of who they lost. Not to avoid it out of discomfort. Just say it. Gloria. It matters more than you know.
• Share the photographs and videos. Post the memory tribute. Let social media be used for what it does best — connecting us across distance, and even across loss.

A Word for Those in Fresh Grief

If you are reading this in the middle of a raw, recent loss — I see you. And I want you to hear this:

There is no timeline for grief. There is no right way to do this.

Whatever you are feeling — the sadness, the disorientation, the moments when you forget for just a second and then remember all over again — all of it is real and all of it is valid. Please do not let anyone rush you. And please do not rush yourself.

What I can tell you from the other side of some of my own deepest losses is this: you will not always feel exactly the way you feel right now. The love does not go anywhere. It transforms. It becomes something you carry forward, quietly shaping every good thing you do from here.

They would want that for you. I believe that completely.

Today, Say Their Name

Wherever you are reading this, I want to invite you to do one thing today.

Say the name of someone you are carrying.

Out loud, or in the quiet of your own heart. Light a candle. Look at a photograph. Call someone who shares the memory. Leave a comment below with their name — I want to hear it. This space is big enough to hold every single one.

I am posting memory videos and tributes this week for my grandmother and for Gloria on my social media pages. I would be honored if you would watch, share if it moves you, and leave a name in the comments. Let us fill that space with love. With the evidence that the people we lose are never truly gone.

Happy Birthday, Gloria. I love you still. I love you always.