You know that helpless feeling when you want to make things better, but you can’t.

Like nothing you will do or say will really help the situation. And you just have to watch the pain?

My mom called to tell me that my grandma was in the hospital and was too sick and weak to make it out. I knew this day was coming, but yet still unprepared. How could I ease this time for my mom? Was that even possible and should it even be eased? Grief is a crazy time. And pain is there regardless.

Instead, I will be the ears that listen and the words that love and support the pain that is there. Be love. I can do that. And so I did.

They say when death is at the door, we realize what is important.

For me, my grandma dying, ignited me with the passion to make sure I am living. Not just going through the motions of the day.

Not the adrenaline risk-taking kind of stuff, but the dream chasing kind. I have a list of things I want to do and see. Ways I want to enrich lives. A person locked inside that I am now setting free.

And I had let the potential judgment of others, along with a million other excuses get in my way. No longer can I let that be. Life is short but way too long to hold myself back and not live. But really, it doesn’t matter what others have to say or how they want to judge. That is no longer a reason to not be me. My journey to my Self begins. One step, every day, in the direction to being the person I was always meant to be.

Thank you, Grandma, for one more incredible lesson.