January 15, 2026
You turned six months old this week, born to a mother whose own mother was already slipping away from brain cancer. We worried you might tip the delicate balance of a house already bowed by sorrow and bracing for loss.
But you were anything but.
You arrived steady. Soft. As if you understood the moment and came bearing your own kind of grace.
We stand in front of the mirror, and you smile and chatter at your reflection like you’ve met a dear friend.
You are weirdly delighted by a diaper change, as if being cared for is its own kind of joy.
And maybe that’s the best part of you: your joyful peace.
I love the warm weight of you in my arms, like a little sack of sugar, and I can’t help but think of your other Nana, Rhonda. How she would have loved to rock you, hold you, and snuggle her nose into your delicious neck just a little longer.
She was taken too soon.
But sometimes I feel her presence so acutely, as if her love is still moving through the room. As if, somehow, she is coming through us—through every kiss, every story, every hand that reaches for you.
Your mama, Sarah, your aunt, and your Papa Mark have each carried that loss in their own way. But they have also done something beautiful with it. They have kept Nana close.
Not as a shadow over the family, but as a light still burning inside it.
Recently, they took a family trip through southern Missouri and northern Arkansas to visit some of Nana’s favorite places in nature.
They honored her by doing the things she loved—being outside, noticing beauty, making memories, letting the land hold what words cannot.
And one day, Wyatt, you—like your older brother George, and your close cousins Evie, Fitz, and Benny—will hear those stories.
George already says, “Nana is always in my heart.”
And maybe that is the truest way love survives.
You will know Nana Rhonda not only by memory, but by love passed down through the people who loved her best.
You will hear about the places she loved, the things that made her laugh, the way she showed up, the way she made ordinary moments feel like family.
And in that way, you will help keep her alive—not just in photographs or stories, but in your hearts.
You will know that before you were old enough to remember her, you were already wrapped in her love.