What I Wish I Could Tell Her Now…

 Today is Leia’s birthday, and I keep finding myself slipping into reflection instead of celebration in the usual way. Birthdays for the ones we love—especially the ones we can’t hold anymore—don’t always feel like cake and candles. Sometimes they feel like memory and longing and quiet conversations we don’t get to have out loud.

And somehow, in the middle of thinking about Leia, I find myself thinking about Grandma… and Lois too.

Three very different souls. Three very different kinds of love. And yet, in my heart, they feel connected in a way I can’t quite untangle.

So today, instead of just marking a birthday, I want to write what I wish I could tell them now.

Leia

I wish I could tell Leia that I still think about her in ordinary moments—the ones she would’ve loved to be part of. I see things she would’ve reacted to. I hear songs that feel like they belong to her. I still catch myself expecting her presence in certain corners of life, like she never fully stopped being part of it.

I wish I could tell her that she mattered more than time ever allowed me to fully understand while she was here. That I didn’t just love her in big moments—I loved her in the routine, the quiet, the everyday.

And I wish I could tell her that today isn’t just about missing her. It’s also about honoring her joy. Her existence still ripples forward, even now. Even here. Even without her physically beside me.

If I could speak to her directly, I think I’d just say: You are still celebrated. You are still remembered. You are still loved in a way that didn’t end when your life did.

Lois

Lois feels like a different kind of ache. Not less love—just a different shape of it.

I wish I could tell Lois that I understand more now than I did then. About aging. About tired bodies. About what it means to keep going when everything feels harder than it used to.

I wish I could tell her I’m sorry for every moment I worried more about the logistics of care than the softness of simply being with her. I see that more clearly now—the gift of presence, not just responsibility.

And I wish I could tell her thank you.

Thank you for staying as long as she did. Thank you for loving in the way senior souls love—steady, familiar, and deeply loyal even when the world gets smaller.

If I could speak to her now, I think I’d say: You were never a burden. You were a gift I didn’t fully know I was holding until I had to let go.

Grandma

And then there is Grandma.

The kind of love that doesn’t just sit in memories—it shapes you. It becomes part of how you move through the world.

I wish I could tell her how often I still reach for her wisdom in my mind, especially when I’m unsure or overwhelmed. I wish I could tell her that her voice didn’t fade—it just got quieter, folded into my own thoughts.

I wish I could tell her about everything she missed, and everything she didn’t. About how life kept unfolding in ways she would’ve both understood and questioned.

But more than anything, I wish I could tell her thank you for the foundation she gave me—the parts of me that are still steady because she was once steady for me.

If I could talk to her now, I think I’d say: I understand more of your love now than I did when I was in it. And I carry it forward in ways you’d recognize.

And today…

Leia’s birthday brings all of this to the surface—the way love doesn’t really leave, it just changes form. It becomes memory. It becomes reflection. It becomes the quiet moments where we talk to people who aren’t here in the same way anymore, but still feel close enough to hear us.

Maybe that’s what today really is.

Not just a birthday.

But a reminder that love doesn’t end where presence does.

So I’ll light the memory of them all in my own way today. Not with sadness alone, but with gratitude woven through it.

Because if I could tell them anything now, it would be this:

You are still part of my life. Not in the past tense. In the ongoing story of who I am becoming.