This post will involve horse racing but it is a bit of a deviation from what I normally write about on this blog.

My grandma, who I was very close to, passed away one year ago today. I know the traditional wisdom is with time comes healing. And many also say how as one gets older time flies.

As this anniversary of her passing approached, I found a multitude of thoughts winging through my mind. In a way I suppose that is fitting.

Life itself can be a jumble of experiences at times and grief can bring that to the forefront.

In a way, that means that I’m not even certain I have fully processed what her not being here means. Shortly after she passed I would still find myself wanting to reach for the phone and call her – she had been in many ways a beacon of truth (even if it was something one didn’t like to hear, there was love behind it) and understanding. She truly was like a rock in our family, someone to count on.

It’s been a while since the impulse to call her has struck but then just a few days ago it came back. It’s always unexpected and for a few seconds there will be that leap of anticipation at getting to talk to her before reality intrudes again.

Maybe what I am now is more wistful that she is not here to go visit or talk to and that is what I can feel when I see places she used to be or that we used to go. But I think wistful is another kind of sad. Not as intense but still some of grief’s echo.

Recalling how time can fly means I find it hard to believe one year has passed already for something I initially didn’t know how to process. But then again I don’t think grief is ever something to process. I think that the best a person can hope for is to find a way to incorporate that in memory and hopefully realize that whoever is gone will never fully be gone.

When my family took a Christmas photo together last year, because I was thinking of my grandma so much during the time that photo was taken, I felt like she was there with me.

It seems to me that a person who passes away goes through the last great frontier a being can cross. While we can never know for sure what is on the other side I do believe that energy cannot fully dissipate. I believe our loved ones are still around in some form, even if that form is only memory and caring forward a love that was shared.

My grandma chose a caring profession of social work and that was a caring that was evident to everyone who knew her. I was touched at some point in the year after her passing to realize an acquaintance had her as a social worker at some point in his life and that she made a strong impact on him through the course of that work.

She did pass away on Memorial Day, which in a way seems fitting and perhaps a bit ironic. Although I don’t truly like to use the word ironic because that seems to make the light of the circumstances. Perhaps that just means I am still trying to sort out my thoughts.

As this anniversary approached I did find a lot of memories of her naturally coming to mind.

I am grateful that they were more about the moments I shared with her and not as much the day of her passing. While some part of that will linger in my mind it is better to have more of her life as a whole to be what filters through.

When one of my cats of 13 years passed away I didn’t want the sadness at his passing to override the joy I felt sharing a life with him and that is the same way I feel about my grandma. I know grieving is necessary and therapeutic to process emotions but I also never want to let what an entire life meant to be overshadowed by one day.

There is a quote on the wall of the 9/11 Museum in New York that says, “no single day shall erase you from the memory of time,” and I think that is an important quote for anyone who has lost someone to take to heart.

When some of the memories recently came sweeping over me they were initially when my cousin’s young daughter was playing in a lobby of the facility where my grandma lived and how she brought a brightness to a time that was also very somber. Isn’t that like the yin and yang of life and also how it’s illustrative that a person’s legacy does carry on through their family?

This was the first time I met this young girl who lives far from here. She is my cousin once removed, and as young children will do she had a joy for life and a yen to pretend. She entertained me and several other family members while she played restaurant, particularly when she notified us that her restaurant was a carrot restaurant. When we placed our orders with her for her pretend food, keeping in mind that it was a carrot restaurant I requested a carrot cake. Even though that was the first time I ever met her she actually took that to heart. Her mom told me later that when they went to the grocery store during that time they were here to be at my grandma’s side, her daughter wanted them to buy a carrot cake for me. I was so moved and in that I saw that a lot of the love my grandma had for her family was carried forward in another of her descendants.

Whenever things were going on where it was prudent that this young cousin needed to be out of the room where my grandma was that was done. At one point I went out to comfort her and that may have been when we first talked about the carrot cake as I dove back into the game of the carrot restaurant.

When we had to go to the funeral home, she had a coloring book and was sitting near me. I engaged with her while she cut out items and I was again touched when she gave me a page from her coloring book. It made such a difference to have her there with everything else that was going on.

Those were some of the memories going through my mind and then it was natural to think of how I would have enjoyed telling my grandma about the carrot restaurant and how she would have laughed and that too made me smile instead of feel sad that I couldn’t tell her that story.

Many times I have thought maybe somehow somewhere she still knows what is going on with her family and even if she doesn’t I can still send that out into the universe with all the love I have for her.

More thoughts came to mind that were not about the time when she was leaving this life. They were about her hospitality when I still lived in Kentucky and came back to Tennessee for visits. She had bought a large house and I would sometimes stay in one of its spare rooms. In this room she had photos on the wall that she had carried from place to place of her children and grandchildren.

My grandma was greatly skilled at things like knitting and quilting. She had made an elaborate quilt at some point in her life that was so well made it looks like it could have come from a machine, custom produced instead of handmade. I am in awe of the skill and time it must have taken to do that.

I bring this up because it probably is what led her to place these photos of family members on a backdrop of fabric with ribbon placed throughout it that made a frame around each photo she placed on there. Looking at those pictures in that room and several other rooms she had placed them in throughout her life gave me a sense of continuity, a family legacy and reminded me of how she probably thought of that too when she placed them all together.

Also on that bed in her spare room that I would sometimes sleep in was the quilt she had made. When she was paring down her belongings to get ready to move to the last home she would have she realized she was ready to pass on that quilt and she had taped a note to it that said it was for one of her children or grandchildren. I was grateful to get to be the recipient of that quilt and she told me that it is one that can be washed but I’m not even putting it on a bed. It feels like a heirloom and a memory, even though it can be used in a practical way.

Another memory that came to mind was on the day that she passed when I and several family members went to the Airbnb where my aunt was staying to regroup.

One of the horses I had a microshare in was scheduled to race that day. I remember sitting by my uncle on the couch while my young cousin (once removed, yes, but that seems too formal to keep calling her) introduced us to her stuffed animals nearby. It was again soothing to me to see the innocence and joy of a young child at play.

It felt a little odd to watch a horse race during that time and I wondered if it would seem disrespectful. I don’t remember if I started out with it muted or if I ever turned the volume up slightly as we all sat around quietly.

I couldn’t resist the impulse to watch the race even though my thoughts about it were not with a level of anticipation I would have usually had, understandably. I do remember my uncle sitting beside me did say something about horse racing as I watched it. When the horse I’d invested in won the race that day it again seem like a reminder of the yin and yang of life. The sadness existing alongside some of the happiness it can contain. And perhaps also fittingly and maybe also a bit ironically is that the horse I invested in who won that day is named A Day to Remember.

So now a year has gone by. I will spend time with my mom today and I’m sure we will reminisce.

A Day to Remember himself has recently been retired but he will go to a good home. That is one thing that matters the most to me about MyRacehorse. As a microshare investor I knew I would not have any say in where a horse goes upon retirement, although some of the microshare investors that have horse experience actually have ended up owning some of the racehorses they invested in.

Since I know personally will never be in a position to do that, what really stood out to me the most is that MyRacehorse has a commitment to good aftercare for the horses they’ve invested in. Even if they don’t own them at the time they retire from racing, they still keep tabs on them.

So yes, time marches on and sometimes it does seem to go by faster and faster.

My oldest nephew recently finished his third year of college, another milestone that has me wondering where the time went.

This time next year we will be at his college graduation and I know there will be a part of me that will think my grandma is there in spirit too.

I used to talk to her about racing, even though like everyone else in my family she doesn’t have much of a level of interest in it. But she would listen because it mattered to me.

That’s how she always was. If it mattered to us, her family, or something was bothering us she always would listen. Things that she said stay with me.

And I suppose that is the best legacy anyone could hope for.