I asked my grandmother what she'd tell her 40-year-old self. She talked for three hours.
My grandmother is 93. Her name is June.
Last year I sat her down with a recorder and asked her one question: What do you wish someone had told you?
She talked for three hours straight. About the marriage she loved that was also the loneliest place she'd ever been. About the friend who disappeared without explanation and the three months she couldn't eat. About the thirty years she spent angry at her mother before she understood what was actually happening.
She said something I haven't been able to stop thinking about:
"Love is not a feeling. It is a decision you make every morning, even on the mornings you do not feel like it."
And this:
"Forgiveness is not a gift you give to the person who hurt you. It is a door you open for yourself."
We turned those three hours into a book. 9 chapters. Every lesson she's learned in 93 years — on love, heartbreak, forgiveness, loneliness, regret, getting older, faith, starting over, and joy.
It's not a self-help book. There are no steps. No morning routines.
It's a conversation with a woman who has been through everything and came out the other side with something that feels like peace.
If you've ever felt like the best was behind you — June wants you to know it was not.
