I Am My Mother's Daughter With Dara Kurtz

Dara Kurtz received decades of wisdom from her dead mother and grandmothers after stumbling across a Ziploc bag of letters. Her new book, I Am My Mother’s Daughter is an inside look at the wisdom shared across maternal generations and a love letter to the power of preserving the written word. We’re talking about the four different types of letters you can write or receive and why it’s important to allow yourself permission to unearth old treasured memories.

Transcript

Grief growers,

I am really excited to introduce you to Dara Kurtz who has written a book already But is coming out with another book about grief called I am my mother's daughter wisdom on life loss and love and it sounds like And I've looked we're gonna get into the story of how this book was created But it sounds like a box of letters or a ziplock bag of letters was discovered and then lots and lots of wisdom on life From generations up poured out.

So Dara welcome to the show and if you could please share your lost story with us Thank you.

I'm so happy to be here So my lost story my mom passed away about two to three about two and a half weeks after I had my first daughter And it was my first child and she had cancer It was a form of skin cancer called melanoma and it was just a really devastating time for me To have a new baby and to be so happy and joyful and at the same time lose your mom and It was just I didn't really know how to deal with those two extremes at the same time but I was in my late 20s and Just kind of put on a happy face if you will kept saying,

You know,

I'm fine.

I'm fine and Really didn't know how to deal with the grief and the pain and the loss and so While I did the best that I could of course,

I've learned a lot between now and way back then And then I lost both my grandmother's later on they Were a very important part of my life growing up But then of course when my mom passed away both my grandmother's became even more important being that mother role in my life and Lose each of them and they were very old when they passed away I mean fortunately they lived well into their 80s late 80s and that was such a blessing but It just kind of brought the wave of grief back from when I lost my mom each time I lost my grandmother and it was really discovering the ziploc bag of letters Which was the biggest gift to myself quite honestly that I finally dealt with the grief and gave myself permission to Make peace with it and move move forward Yeah,

So tell us about this ziploc bag of letters.

Where did you find it?

How did it get there?

What was it full of?

Because it sounds like To a person who's only read the synopsis of your upcoming book I am my mother's daughter it sounds like Mana from the heavens it's like and the ziploc bag full of letters that contained everything I needed to know fell into my lab.

It sounds very magical like there's a magical quality about it.

It is magical So I'm gonna try to do this really fast My oldest daughter was about to go back to college and we were in my room and when they were little I have two daughters I kept a mother-daughter journal between us So I would write to one of my daughters put it on her pillow she would write back to me put it on my pillow and it was just a really beautiful way for us to communicate and Right before she was about to leave to go back to school.

She was in my room just kind of opening drawers looking through things as we sat and talked and she found one of the mother-daughter journals that we used to have and we immediately started reading it and Sharing and we were crying and laughing and it was just such a beautiful experience And after she went back to school,

I was thinking later on that night Gosh what I wouldn't do to have something like that for my mom something that I could you know touch that I could get a glimpse into her personality and just I missed her so much and That's when I remembered this ziploc bag of letters that I had from the first time I went to camp at age nine until I graduated from college and most of the letters were written by my mom and my two Grandmother's and every year I would go to college at camp or college come home and somehow and somehow The letters that I received from that year or that summer would be put I would just put them in the ziploc bag That was in my closet And when I grew up and moved this ziploc bag of letters ended up in my grown-up house At the back of a drawer and after reading that journal with zoe that's when I thought you know what?

I remember I have this bag and I finally had the courage to reread the letters that I had been putting off for so many years because I was worried that It would make me feel all the pain that I had worked so hard to let go of and release And so finally I sat on the couch one night reading these letters Crying the ugly cry that Oprah says,

You know the ugly cry sobbing just on the couch by myself and Feeling like I was having a conversation with my mom and it was unbelievable it was the biggest gift because I'm in my late 40s and my mom passed away 20 years ago and I never really had that grown-up relationship with her if you will and so I kind of was able to get a glimpse into The person that she was and it was amazing.

I could feel her personality I could hear her voice and I got a much needed dose of a lot of wisdom that quite frankly I needed to hear I love this story and I literally wrote down as you were speaking words and letters as a portal Oh gosh,

Yes and this idea that Because I agree with you.

I have this sense too of like no I can't I can't sit down and look at that because I'm gonna Have an ugly cry and I don't want to engage with that.

There's almost a resistance to like dipping into the portal Because it's gonna be painful and then usually after I do I'm like,

Oh my god But there's a forgetfulness of like how How connecting the portal can be because we see at first that surface level of oh my god.

This is really gonna hurt Going in forgetting almost like an amnesia about how deep the connection is Exactly,

And it's okay that I had that ugly cry,

You know,

It was such a release that I needed to have and this whole experience helped me so much and Really letting go of all the pain and the grief and the sadness that I have literally Carried with me for the last 20 years.

Um,

And you know grief has followed me around like my shadow it's been seeping into every part of my life for the last 20 years and reading these words from the people that Loved me so much and that has that had such an incredible impact on my life I realized that you know what?

They don't they don't want me to be sad.

They don't want me to walk around every day thinking How we got a bad deal because they're not here with me they would want me to make the most of every day in my life And so it was almost kind of like a fuck up dara.

It's time to give yourself permission And you know just embrace all the happiness and the joy that is in your life Did you feel like you had to be sad Like first if you you might be forgetting about them or dishonoring their memories if like the sadness or the grief wasn't there I definitely think there's an element to that.

There's I mean,

I'll just I like to say guilt I think there's a there was a level of guilt that yeah How could I go on and move forward and be happy?

And do all these things if my mom didn't get to do that with me because you know one of the greatest Hardest challenges in my life is that my mom passed away just really a few weeks after I had my first child and she never got to know my kids and they never got to know her and that's been one of the saddest things about everything this whole thing But yeah,

So the guilt was definitely there but also realizing that it's okay to Let go of all that sadness and i'm reading the letters.

I finally really feel like for the first time And don't get me wrong I think about my mom and my grandmother's every day they're so with me they travel through my life with me But it's not through the lens of sadness yeah,

And um I appreciate almost how that has been Transmuted sometimes I think about grief as like an alchemic process like sometimes it starts off Really sad and ugly and dark and then we by doing the work of paying attention to it and listening to it and giving ourselves Permission as you've said over and over again we can almost like compress or transmute the thing into a different kind of emotion whether it's Joy or nostalgia or like the happy tears kind of energy I wrote down.

I love no one else has mentioned this before on coming back,

But there's This grief you're talking about where my mom never got to know my mom and I never got to know my mom This grief you're talking about where my mom never got to meet my kids and so like i'm sad for myself because she never got to Meet my kids,

But i'm also sad for my kids.

I wrote grief for myself grief for my children It's a unique grief of parents to grieve the relationships that their children will not have Absolutely,

Just you know,

My mom would always say to me when I was growing up one day when you have kids I can't wait to be a grandmother.

We're gonna do x we're gonna do y and You know,

It was that grief from that loss that that never happened.

So it was that and then Just so many times I knew that she would have been able to positively impact my kids And given them maybe something that I thought they really needed that I knew she would have had that magic touch if you will And so It was really it was definitely felt I think as my daughters get older were in there Were in there,

Um,

Almost 21 and almost 18 now We're able to have more mature conversations.

And of course with this book now They've they're you know,

They're they've read the book and we're able to have some conversations that maybe we wouldn't have had And I definitely think that the loss of my mom has impacted their life their life Absolutely,

And they felt that loss As I I as my husband and I were raising them And I think some of that is because I struggled so much For my for them to know my mom.

I wanted so badly for them to To know her that maybe it was a little maybe it was a little overdone,

But that's okay It is what it is and that leads right into my next question of do you wish you would have discovered the letter sooner?

Like on your mothering journey.

Oh gosh.

Yes Immediately.

Yes I mean not even a yes a hard a hard yes because it had such a positive impact on me in terms of Me accepting what has happened me letting go me,

You know saying okay,

It is what it is It's not the way I want it,

But it's okay and i'm going to be happy and you know just so much is there um,

And if I had discovered that if I had reread those letters and Listen to the voices listen to the words from my mom and my grandmother's I think I would have realized And I knew this but seeing it in print and hearing it through their personalities I knew how much they would have never wanted their deaths to impact my life.

I knew that but Rereading them finally in this season of my life.

I finally get it.

I'm finally able to live that but you know,

Maybe I wasn't I choose to believe that I wasn't meant to find the bag until now that I wasn't meant to Do this now because maybe I wasn't ready to To go down that path and you know,

That's okay I like that you said I choose to believe That I wasn't meant to find the bag until now because it's a different statement than everything happens for a reason It's kind of like that.

I'm opting into Believing that this was delivered to me or it was it was a right time Right time.

Um And it takes a little bit more of our yeah.

I mean,

I'm a different person today than I was you know six years ago that I was 20 years ago and You know,

We evolved we go through things and we grow if we let ourselves and so maybe I Maybe the way that I was able to take in all of the messages impacted me in a much greater way now than I would have been able to receive if I had Done it 20 years ago Yeah Somehow perhaps there's more weight Yeah.

Oh,

Yeah for sure to it.

Yeah I wonder um in the letters because it sounds like they're mostly correspondences while you were at camp or you were at college Which to me would read as um Light-hearted or inspirational or even kind of funny.

I wonder if you discovered anything you didn't want to remember or didn't want to know Yeah,

So,

Um,

It's funny that you that you said that but um So this whole experience made me realize that there's actually four different kinds of letters There's like the everyday letter the everyday letter that is what mostly I received which is the you know,

Dear dara It's hot here.

This is what i'm up to blah blah blah and then little treasures and little um,

You know Um,

You know Wisdom is they're they're in the middle of those letters.

So that's actually my favorite kind of letter Um,

Then there's the thank you letter that you write to say thank you for whatever reason there's the special occasion letter that you write,

Um to mark a special occasion like A graduation or a wedding or something big and then there's the legacy letter that you write If you are going to pass away and you want to write a letter to someone and my mom actually did that And um the day of her death my uh her funeral my dad came in my room and he had a letter for me from my mom and so that was really really impactful,

But um Yeah,

I definitely think that What was the question?

I got so if you discovered um anything that you didn't want to know When I was at freshman orientation At college so I went with my mom to freshman orientation And I was about to start college and I went out and I went out that night.

I went to a fraternity party and Totally got a buzz came back.

My mom had no idea where I was going.

I had no cell phone She couldn't track me on an app.

I couldn't text her to tell her I was okay So she's back at the hotel worried sick about me having no idea where I am and it's like 12 30 at night during orientation So I remember I I got back to the hotel and there was um a little piece of paper underneath my door And so I it said dara,

Please come to my room as soon as possible And no matter what time you get in and then opening it up.

There was this huge letter So I went back,

You know went to her hotel room knocked on the door and she comes out She's so basically we're standing in the hallway at the sheridan hotel.

My mom's in her nightgown I'm totally buzzed from going to a fraternity party and we are hashing it out and So one of the letters that I found was That letter that she had slid under my door and I mean it says it all I put it in the book because you know My relationship with my mom was real and I want to remember all of it I don't want to just remember,

You know,

All the happy times or all the good stuff You know,

I want to remember the real the grit right like The the fact that it wasn't always unicorns and rainbows and so um,

I read this letter and I put it in the book and You know,

It basically said how disappointed she was in me and how um,

If if I continue to make these choices how she was concerned about me going to school and you know Blah blah blah all the things that you would think your mom would say to you.

But um,

Yeah So I came across from that letter I came across from that letter.

I love this image of uh,

Mom and my gown and like you a little buzz Fraternity party hanging out in the hallway.

Just having at it because lord knows i've been in hotels while that's happening And i'm lying in my own bed being like I think someone's having a fight in the hallway That is exactly what happened so I mean,

Yeah,

That's exactly what happened And it wasn't the so my freshman orientation was definitely laced with this whole.

Um,

And I went to school far away And so I was like 10 hours away and it was actually really hard for me to be that far away from my family And my mom was very concerned about me being that far away So it was already kind of a thing and then when I made these choices that night So she was very concerned and you can you can feel all of that in the letter In the letter Yeah,

And thank you for sharing that with us because because sometimes Unveiling the hard parts of grief or the things that perhaps were left unfinished or the conversations that weren't fluffy Um,

It's not always something that people Want to talk about or even publicize through a podcast.

Um,

So yeah,

Thank you for sharing that with us and I wonder um,

I want to bring out at this moment a funny letter that you posted on your facebook a few days ago I'm gonna read it verbatim It says words of wisdom from grandma 1982 Make sure you're going to the toilet regularly.

If you have trouble you have to mention it to the counselor.

It's very important And I read this I said a I hope it's in the book and b I hope there's a really good story Oh,

It's totally in the book as are so many other little nuggets.

So that was my grandmother's personality And you can really feel the different personalities of these three women I think you know and that's what's so special about going back and rereading letters that i've been written to you from a long time ago Is that you really can capture their personalities?

But yeah,

I mean I was at camp and Um,

She she was always very concerned about her grandchildren's um bathroom Bathroom behaviors.

She was always incredibly concerned about whether or not we were constipated and where were we going to the bathroom?

And so many times she wrote me letters about that,

You know,

Are you going in the bathroom?

Tell your counselor if you can't it's very important,

You know and so um I just had to put it in there and I just laughed literally when I was rereading them and I thought you know what?

Of course,

I didn't tell my counselor.

I mean that would have been so embarrassing,

You know,

Excuse me I'm a nine-year-old girl and I can't poop Poop you know what I wonder if you tell me Of course I didn't say anything but um,

So it was just a very I mean,

It's kind of how she was she worried about all those kinds of things and I love that She I love I love that she did that well,

And it brings me so much joy to because there are jokes in my family of like you're not at Uh a family member's event unless the subject of poop comes up in conversation So when it finally comes up,

You know now that we're old enough we all like take a shot or something Like it's it's kind of a game that we play where we wait and now that all my cousins are having grandchildren It happens within like 0.

2 seconds.

So we just wait But it's a personality thing too and and it brings humor to conversations and When it shows up in letters,

There's like oh there they are.

It's not um,

It's not an administrative piece of writing It's it's got personality and she had so many little nuggets of that like,

You know Make sure that you don't put anything wet in your suitcase when you're packing up make sure you leave it out But then don't forget to take it home and just so many little things that you know Um a little nine-year-old girl probably wouldn't wouldn't think about and so I love that but one of the things that I found In the letter from that same grandmother was that she had said in a letter in a letter dara,

Here's a rubber band so you can go ahead and save all the letters that you're getting from camp and um use this rubber band and then bring them home and so I'm thinking that maybe That's how it all originated actually That she had said that and sent me a rubber band to um Put around my I just I don't know.

I never knew that.

I forgot I i've forgotten that and then when I read that I was like Oh You know first inkling that maybe these are worth saving.

Yeah,

I love that when I saw that Well,

And I want to ask you a dichotomizing question.

So feel free to walk the middle on this one,

But um,

Do you Mourn the fact that we are moving so far into a technology age and letters are no longer the norm like handwritten letters Um,

Or are you really stoked about what technology helps us preserve?

In letter writing so I think the answer is both I love technology for the ability to easily communicate with my daughters and see them and facetime them and text them and Track them What you doing?

I know where they are Yeah,

But um,

So I love all of that and I think it's a beautiful way for you to grow a relationship And stay in each other's lives,

Especially if you don't live close by or even now during the coronavirus Thank goodness.

We have all of this technology so that we're able to really connect but I also feel like there's definitely a place for the handwritten word and That's something that i'm really passionate about now and i've always been someone that like i've always written little notes to my daughters Or my husband,

You know put it in their suitcase Write them a letter when they're going somewhere,

You know,

Just always put it on their pillow You know,

Like we had the mother-daughter journals.

I mean i've always been someone that does that um,

But this just really Makes me realize how important it is because there's nothing like seeing the handwriting Of a person that you love and knowing that you know They wrote this and seeing just they held this once and now it's mine And I don't know it's just different plus i've had emails that i've received from people that were meaningful And I had good intentions of saving the email or printing it out and maybe I got a new computer or you know for whatever reason it's gone and It's out there in the you know,

It's I can't find it and i'm not going to be able to find it and so I think there's definitely a place for handwritten words and I encourage anyone listening to this to maybe think about that and You know take the time to write a letter to someone that you really care about that you really love Mail it to them.

Gosh,

There's nothing more fun than going in the mailbox and having a surprise letter from someone that You love and care about when you were least expecting it and just do the just because letter and just tell them whatever you know Hi,

Just wanted you to know I was thinking about you blah blah blah blah blah and if you don't Worry too much about being perfect And having perfect spelling or the perfect handwriting lots of really good nuggets of wisdom can come out I love that you said that because that's often the pressure that I and so many of my friends put myself under when we try And write letters.

It's like but what do we say?

And i'm like say what you always do over a text or or uh over email but just in a letter or my sister and I My sister more than me.

She's a little better about writing letter letters than I am but have been trading for Postcards ever since I moved away from home Uh and went to college and so we'll even do little doodles if we have nothing to say or if we just want to share some Silly artwork and put it in there um And it reminds me quite a bit of a lot of the political activism that's taking place right now and one of my favorite Organizations is postcards to voters where people will volunteer to write letters to people to encourage them to get to the polls in november And just seeing another human's handwriting saying hi.

This is important.

I hope you will Is so uh incredibly powerful and then too I made the connection that you host a podcast called thrive With garth callahan who's the napkin notes dad And he like wrote napkin notes to his daughter while he had cancer and became Internationally famous for it.

And so i'm like something about a love of handwriting is all coming to fruition here.

Yeah,

It's crazy Um,

I mean this whole garth and I have had that podcast for two years So this whole thing has been a huge help for me I mean,

I've been doing podcasts for two years.

So this whole thing happened after that and now it's like it makes our We're even more connected like on another level and but garth and I love like we have Calendars that we like hand write.

I mean,

Yes,

I have the online calendar also But I mean there's nothing that makes me happier than like a pen and a journal or you know Just I I love everything about that.

In fact for my anniversary.

My husband just got me this I haven't used it yet But it's like this ipad.

Oh,

It's an apple pencil.

I have one of those.

Uh-huh Yes Anyway,

I haven't used it yet.

Um,

But anyway,

So,

You know,

I just there's something really magical that can happen when you start writing Um,

You know and that's just just like free writing like even just in a journal every day I mean,

I think it really helps you connect with your thoughts I'm curious.

Did are you saving the postcards?

Oh for my sister Uh for the most part i'm a heavy heavy minimalist so like saving handwriting things is hard for me So I take pictures of all of them and then I throw them away.

Um,

The ones I really really Love or find really funny though.

I have like a whole file where i've saved them all what's funny Is that I received my own kind of rubber band?

When I started in the professional workforce when I graduated in 2014 And somebody or maybe it was in a book I read but I heard this piece of advice somewhere out in the universe That said every job that you have Create an inbox or a folder in your inbox called things to keep or notes to save or encouraging thoughts or something And every time something good happens put it in that folder right away And if you have a bad day you go look at it And so i've done this with you know,

My professional inboxes at work,

But then i've also created them in my personal life so when i'm dating somebody and they send me this really long love note or Tickets to a show that we're going to or something really cool and exciting i'll put it in there or um Even in in grief work people who listen to the podcast and just find it useful I'll put the put it all in there and so on days when things are really Dark or sad or even slow i'll just go in there and kind of start scrolling through and it's it's a digitization of the The rubber banded letters it's amazing to me,

But I remember writing When I was 16 years old you I made this list of like here's the things I want to do For my life and for some wild reason on this sheet I wrote receive 1 million.

Thank you notes before I die And I was like,

That's really cool and I have no idea how many thank you notes i've received I think 1 million is kind of an arbitrary number but To add up all the things that are in you know,

One in one Inbox the other inbox and the physical things of the letters i've received also is I think there's a little bit of selfishness in it But then there's also a little bit of um altruism and I I think too is that this is how much you've helped kind of legacy notice like there's proof and evidence that like your life has mattered on the earth while you've been here And so to see it via a thank you note whether it's a On the earth while you've been here.

Um,

And so to see it via a thank you note whether it comes through email or actually to my mailbox,

Um is Is like this meant something you've found your purpose.

It's been fulfilled and and I think My 16 year old self is like,

Okay.

I need I need proof that I matter in the world teenagers often think It's like what am I really doing here?

I'm trying to find my purpose and somehow for me that came out in this vision of Well,

If I receive a million thank you notes,

Then i'll know for sure.

It was my thoughts when I was 16 But I was raised to write thank you notes.

So that very much translates into my upbringing too.

Oh,

I love that yeah,

And I I also love handwritten notes because I think handwriting itself like the The ink on the page,

Um is so triggering of memories.

I mean you've seen people that get grief tattoos of their Parents or spouses or kids handwriting There's been so much research that shows just like free flowing writing even you know in the morning It's just such a beautiful way to start your day because so much Can like a brain dump you know,

You kind of get it all out you can release so much But you can also learn so much about yourself when you just do that And so that's you know,

That's actually a really beautiful habit to have it's just connecting with your thoughts via a journal That's why I love that the mother-daughter journals that I have with my daughters when they get to the end I was really excited to see my daughters when they were young because It was just such a great way for them to say things to me That maybe they weren't comfortable saying when they were you know little or for me to Even just boost their self-esteem and say things to them and I knew they were going to read it Because it was in a journal entry versus me just saying it and then forgetting it.

Yeah Well and tell me now kind of how that's evolved because it sounds like the mother-daughter journaling practice in the physical book and entering their early 20s and All these other milestones in their life.

Like how are you leaving your own kind of legacy letters in their lives?

So they have what you had to hold on to yeah Um,

So my daughters really did not go to overnight camp They were they tried they tried and they were very hemsick So they didn't go when they were nine years old,

But they they ended up eventually going when they got older But by then they were allowed to take their phones and we could text each other and you know,

That was just so much easier than writing a letter but um,

They have They I write i've always written little letters to them,

You know,

Put it on their pillow put it in in their lunch box But if they're going somewhere put it in their suitcase My daughter's at the beach right now and right before she left I wrote her a letter and put it on her clean laundry That she was taking so I know that she when she was unpacking her suitcase at the beach She was getting that letter.

So that's something i've always done and they save the letters they absolutely do but you know,

That's what I love about this book also is because These books,

You know,

I wrote these books for everyone and I wrote them for my daughters and so There's they'll always have these books Yeah,

And so it's almost like there's the there's the printed evidence the compilation Of everything but then there's the kind of little everyday sprinkles absolutely and it's the everything sprinkles I think are so magical because Because you know,

You're having a good day.

You're not having a good day whatever day you're having.

It's okay Especially when you live with people and you can recognize that you know,

And I can write a little note.

I'm so sorry You know,

You're you're stressed out.

You're good luck on your test blah blah blah and then maybe say something that I think is Maybe a little nugget of goodness that if I said it to her she wouldn't pay any attention to but reading it I think The message is delivered to a greater in a greater way Yeah,

Well and I wonder if you have any pieces of advice for grading people who are listening right now who are interested in writing their own leather letters to leave to others or Perhaps starting to go through letters that they were left.

So kind of maybe two different areas of advice So how do I go through the letters that I was left by somebody I love or how do I go about finding them?

Maybe um or emotionally processing them which is a whole beast of its own and then if I want to leave my own letters When I die,

How do I start that process too without again falling into that perfectionism?

What the hell do I say?

Love it.

Such a good question.

Um,

So for one I would say go through your house go through It's amazing what we have in drawers right or boxes stuffed in our houses,

Um,

Or you know ask your parents See if you have a box somewhere that was that is filled with things that from your childhood It's amazing what you can find in that and I would say have the courage to go through it don't be afraid of what you're going to find because I truly believe like I said that I was meant to find this now and Whatever you find I think you're meant to find now as well and I spent so long being fearful of rereading the letters And they were so Such a game changer for me think about that when you approach a letter that you're not sure about That when you approach the situation,

So maybe maybe a little less fear and a little more excitement about What this is going to bring to you or the connection that you're going to feel to the people that you love and that you miss Because they loved you so much that they took the time to write you this letter It's such a gift to be able to go back and have it sure you might cry sure It might make you sad.

You might really miss them.

Absolutely.

I had those moments,

But i'm also so grateful It's really my my greatest.

Um My greatest materialistic item if you will that I have it's not you know I have a lot of really nice things but at the end of the day the ziploc bag of letters means more to me than All the fancy jewelry that I have because it's like the thing you'd save in a fire Yeah,

It's the words from the people that loved us.

It's the words from people that you love and that loved you That means more than anything And that's what I realized through all this.

Um About writing the legacy letter.

I actually in my book walk people through that.

Oh good Absolutely about how they can start I have like journal prompts that people can consider using to write their own legacy letter There's really a few things that I realized from the legacy letter that my mom left us one She wrote that legacy letter when she was really really sick.

And so I know that it didn't contain really What she maybe would have wanted to say to me Because she was really sick when she wrote it and so I think it's a great idea to write her legacy letter when you're not going Through anything when you aren't in the middle of a health crisis because you're able to maybe approach it in a in a calmer way and really think about what you want to say to someone in a different way than if you're Really really sick going through treatment feeling terrible physically.

It's just it's kind of I think it's going to be a different The result is going to be a different a different quality if you will So I realized that and then I really realized that there's magic in Leaving a legacy letter.

I mean there really is and My dad actually received a legacy letter from his parents and it wasn't until I remember When the second of my grandparents had passed away and we were going through the will that we found that letter And that was just such a beautiful gift to to our family to have Because they said,

You know how proud they were of my dad and just all these beautiful things It's such a gift to leave the people that you love it really is Yeah,

And oftentimes letters contain The things we mean to say but we either forget or maybe we don't have The courage in the moment or we think it's going to sound cheesy.

So we just don't the thing of like I love you I'm,

So proud of you.

I can't thank you enough.

I'm so glad you're in your life You're like people like you're so full of crap you're so full of cheese or you know,

Whatever it is and and uh,

Sometimes you're like no,

But I really need you to say it and I really need you to hear it And so a letter is a really good channel Yeah,

And you know,

There's lots of journal prompts in the book that like you could say,

You know The 10 things I want you to know about me or 10 10 of my favorite times that we shared together,

You know,

It doesn't have to necessarily be Dear such and such it could be more of a list if that's easier Yeah,

It's there's so many different ways to do it.

There's no there are no rules.

I think that's the most important thing I love that and I think too if you have the luxury of being able to look at a scrapbook or photographs or something else To like start to trigger that um,

It might be really helpful to yeah,

There's a thousand ways to To leave a legacy for yourself through the wit and word.

I mean like Things like bullet journaling and like a word a day remind me of a memory that starts with this Um,

Or yeah,

What have you and so there's a lot of ways to get started doing that I mean,

That's at the end of the day You're leaving something One of the last things that maybe the people you love the most are going to read so let your personality Shine you're not trying to impress anyone you are leaving You're really writing a love letter with your family and your family You're really writing a love letter whatever that looks like to you I love that