My uncle said to my father at my Grandmother’s funeral… “Mom was love.” And I couldn’t respond because that just made me cry harder than I already was. It wasn’t an empty compliment, it was a bald fact. She was love. Don’t get me wrong, she had a temper like anyone else and she could get plenty angry, but, at the end of the day, she was love. It radiated out of her and brightened everyone she met. My son, Ian, reminds me of her every day- his sunny smile and the way he has never met someone who wasn’t instantly a friend are all her. Somehow that bright, shiny ability to see the lovability in everyone has passed itself down to him. I wish that she could have had more time to know him, and I hope that for all of us there is someone in this world who can say, when we are gone, “93 years were not enough.”

She loved the springtime flowers most of all, so I am glad to report that, under the snow that is falling right now, our daffodils are about to open up and shout, “here we are!” and make everyone who sees them want to smile back. Because that’s just how she was. It seems fitting to be waiting for the daffodils today, on her day.

We got to give a little love, have a little hope
Make this world a little better

-Ziggy Marley