"Main thing, keep smiling."

This is what it looked like the day my grandma died peacefully in her sleep surrounded by people who loved her.

I inherited her love for travel, adventure, food, and positivity. I admired her vibrance, courage, strength, uniqueness, sense of humor, and unconventional ways. She liked ladybugs, bright colors, sweets, happy face stickers, gin, the number 3, seafood, Frank Sinatra, and telling stories.

She believed in happiness, thoughtfulness, simplicity, and that regret comes from the things you didn't do, not the things you did. I sent her postcards from all over the world, and she was the biggest cheerleader of my wanderlust. She ended each correspondence with, "Main thing, keep smiling."

She once told me that wherever I go she would be an angel on my shoulder. I am who I am because I am her granddaughter. I am so grateful to be.