The Icons in Our Lives

There’s been a lot of loss around us lately.

We’ve had clients lose mothers and grandmothers. And with the passing of Dolly Parton, I’ve found myself thinking about the women who become icons in our lives.

Some of them we know intimately.

Our mothers. Our grandmothers. Our sisters. Our friends. Our mentors. The women whose voices we can still hear in our heads, whose sayings we repeat without even realizing it, whose recipes we make, whose traditions we carry forward.

And then there are women we may never meet who somehow become part of our stories, too.

Women like Dolly.

Women whose music, words, humor, courage, generosity, authenticity, or simply their willingness to be fully themselves show us something about who we might be.

They make an impact without ever knowing our names.

And maybe that’s what an icon really is.

A woman whose life leaves something behind in yours.

The Women Who Shape Us

When we lose someone, we don’t just grieve the person.

We grieve their physical presence in our lives.

The phone call.

The laugh.

The stories we’ve heard a thousand times.

The seat they always sat in.

The ability to pick up the phone and know they’re on the other end.

There’s a residue to grief. Life moves forward, but something of that person—and something of their absence—stays with us.

And grief can look very different depending on the relationship.

For some of us, our mothers or grandmothers were our safe place. Our biggest cheerleaders. The women who believed in us before we believed in ourselves. The ones who showed us what strength, love, resilience, or courage looked like.

Those relationships are incredible gifts.

And when we lose them, we feel the enormity of the space they occupied in our lives.

For others, the relationship may have been more complicated.

Maybe she wasn’t the mother you needed her to be. Maybe there was distance, hurt, disappointment, or things that never got resolved.

And sometimes a relationship was both.

Deep love and deep hurt.

Beautiful memories and painful ones.

Because relationships are human.

And grief doesn’t suddenly make them simple.

We Carry Them With Us

Whether through their love, their example, their lessons—or even through what we chose to do differently because of them—the women in our lives help make us who we are.

We carry pieces of them.

Their strength.

Their humor.

Their courage.

Their traditions.

Their words.

Their beliefs.

Their love.

Sometimes their wounds.

And sometimes a fierce determination to choose something different for ourselves.

It all becomes part of us.

Which is why I don’t think legacy is only about what someone accomplished or how many people knew her name.

Legacy is impact.

It’s the way someone’s life changes another life.

Sometimes that impact reaches millions.

Sometimes it reaches one little girl sitting at her grandmother’s kitchen table.

Both matter.

And Then, We Become

Maybe one of the gifts of getting older—and becoming more aware—is realizing something else:

We are becoming the women someone else will remember, too.

We are becoming the mothers, grandmothers, friends, mentors, leaders, and women who help shape someone else’s story.

Maybe, in our own way, we are becoming the icons in someone else’s life.

I love that word becoming.

Because I don’t think we wake up one morning and suddenly become this wise, perfectly evolved woman who has it all figured out.

Thank God, because I’d still be waiting.

We become her through living.

Through loving.

Through screwing things up and trying again.

Through choosing differently.

Through taking the trip.

Through saying the thing.

Through showing up.

Through being brave enough to become more and more ourselves.

And whether we realize it or not, someone is experiencing us along the way.

Someone is learning from the way we live.

Someone is being changed by the way we love.

Someone may remember our laugh, our advice, our strength, our ridiculousness, our courage, or the way we made them feel.

Who Are You Honoring?

So I want to leave you with a question:

Who came to mind while you were reading this?

Maybe it’s your mom.

Your grandmother.

A friend.

A teacher.

A mentor.

Maybe it’s a woman you’ve never met but who somehow gave you permission to be more of yourself.

Maybe she’s still here.

Tell her.

Maybe she’s gone and you miss her like crazy.

Honor her.

Maybe the relationship was complicated, but you can recognize the ways it shaped you.

Acknowledge that, too.

And then take a moment to think about yourself.

Not just who you’ve been.

But the woman you are becoming.

How do you want to live?

How do you want to love?

What do you want the people whose lives you touch to carry with them because they knew you?

Because one day, someone may tell a story about you.

And I can’t think of a more beautiful legacy than for someone to be able to say:

She lived.

She loved.

She mattered.

And because she was here, I am different. ❤️