Finding Hope, Gratitude, and Legacy After Loss

When I chose my three words for 2026, Steady, Rooted, & Legacy, I knew I was navigating a new season. At the time, I could already feel the weight I was carrying. My mom had passed away in September 2025, and with her passing came a season of grief that reshaped my sense of normal. It invited me to consider what it meant to stay steady and rooted when life was changing in ways I didn’t expect.

I thought that was the storm. I didn't know it was just the beginning of a longer winter.

In March 2026, six months to the day after my mom passed, we called in hospice for my dad, and the next day he went to be with her.

To lose both parents in a span of six months is a disorienting, breathtaking kind of grief. It's hard to describe unless you’ve lived it. There are still waves of sadness. That part is real and honest and ongoing. But sitting here now, watching summer rain move across everything outside my window, water settling into the ground, plants still doing what plants do, I also feel something I didn’t expect to feel so soon. I feel a profound, quiet sense of gratitude and peace.

For the last six months of my father’s life, I had the incredible privilege of being his caretaker, and for that I am deeply grateful. Peace comes from knowing that he is where he wants to be, and that is back with his bride of 59 years, and they are both whole and healthy. 

There's an emotional toll and heavy reality of watching someone you love fade. But there is also something deeply holy in it. It allowed me to slow down and match his pace. It gave us hours of quiet conversations, shared memories, and a beautiful, unhurried closure that is rare in this fast-paced world. In taking care of him, I wasn't just giving; I was receiving.  I was learning, in the most stripped-down way, what actually matters when everything nonessential falls away.

It turns out that my words for the year weren't just a compass for the future, they were a preparation for my current reality. 

Steady: Showing up day after day for my dad taught me the true meaning of consistency over intensity. It wasn’t about productivity or momentum, but it was about presence and quiet faithfulness. It was a steady calm, even when my heart was aching.

Rooted: Losing both parents stretches your roots to their absolute limit. But I have found that the foundation they built in me with faith, love, resilience, and values is unshakable. I am bending, but I am not breaking.

Legacy: As I look at the space they left behind, I am reminded that legacy isn't about titles or achievements. It’s etched into the hearts of the people we leave behind. I see their legacy in my daughters, me and my two sisters, and in my two grandsons, one of whom was born last week.  Life keeps moving, carrying pieces of them forward in ways that feel both ordinary and sacred.

"Grief is just love with no place to go."

-Jamie Anderson

Grief is not a problem to be solved; it is a love that has nowhere to go. But there is hope here, too. There is immense beauty in the bittersweet, and there is deep gratitude for the time and the honor of walking both of my parents all the way home.

There is a steadiness I’m learning to live with now, one that holds both loss and love at the same time, without needing to rush either. Thank you for walking alongside me in this space and for allowing me to share the beautiful, bittersweet reality of the journey.