Just like our bodies are made up of thousands and thousands of cells, who we are is composed of thousands and thousands of moments. Some big, some small, some we barely even notice. And they all have the ability to change and fluctuate with size as others occur. A small moment that seems insignificant can turn into the most monumental one as life unfolds.

When we are young, everything seems so large. Our whole lives ahead of us, we don’t know enough to try to commit things to memory. Yet, the world has a way of ingraining those into the fiber of our being. Knitting them there for us to look back on later, or remember as we grow.

They help shape who we are.

I grew up in a small town that I never liked very much. My favorite part of it lay just outside my bedroom window. It was the house next door. And the people that lived in it. They were an older couple, former missionaries. They were amazing. I had started being sent over for play dates with their granddaughter in the summer time. Her and I had a blast. The house and its contents were an adventure itself. Add to it the huge garden outside that seemed like it was as big as a football stadium and the large garden shed that we turned into a house or a spaceship depending on our whims that day. I had met people and a place where I felt like I truly belonged.

After that first summer ended, I still ventured over whenever I could to spend time with the woman. She taught me how to make soap, bake bread from scratch, grow almost anything and the whole time she would tell me tale after tale of all their trips to far off lands. While I knew they were there as missionaries, the tales were not of Jesus or religion. They were about love and how no matter what the differences were in cultures, no matter what part of the world they were in, love was the one language that everyone understood.

The hours and hours I spent with her fed my creativity and nurtured my soul in such a way that it felt very much like home to be there.

So much so that I named my eldest after her.

This past week, our world became a bit dimmer. After 96 years of being simply amazing, Mrs. S has moved on to her next adventure. I don’t pretend to know what is in store for us after we leave here, but in my optimistic utopian afterlife, she went home to her husband Art. And their garden is even bigger.

She will be missed very, very, much.

She was Maude (minus dating considerably younger men) before Maude was.