I am fortunate to come from a long line of strong, independent, and curious women on either side of my family. My maternal grandmother was a spirited woman with strong liberal and feminist values despite being born before she even had the right to vote. Granny grew up on a working farm during the Great Depression, and thanks to her own strong-minded mother, she was encouraged to go to college and left the farm behind to build a new life in the big city. In the 1930s, she set out by train to meet her sister in Chicago and create a path of her own. Eventually, Granny finished her degree, become a bank manager, raised four children, and traveled the world. Quite a set of accomplishments for a gal born and raised on a farm in 1917!

My maternal grandmother and I shared an incredibly close bond. I spent a good portion of my childhood and adolescence under her care, and she lived with us for a few years since my mom (a flight attendant) was frequently gone, flying around the world for work.

A year or two before she passed away, I visited Ithaca to help her move house. Aware that it would probably be one of the last times we would have together 'just the two of us,' I tried to soak up as many memories as possible through her stories and beloved scrapbooks. During that trip, I made Granny two promises. First, that I would be the one by her side whenever it was time for her to go. And second, to scatter some of her ashes on my future trips around the globe so that her spirit would continue to travel with me long after she passed. This included bringing some of her ashes back to Friesland, more specifically to the little villages that her grandparents left when they sailed from Friesland to America in the 1890s.

One year after Granny's passing, I drove with my mom to the countryside in Friesland, a few hours north of Amsterdam. By the time this date rolled around, I felt very tense and honestly dreaded taking the trip. Despite my promise, I was not quite ready to confront and accept the devastating reality that she really was gone from this life. There would be no more postcards exchanged between us and no more competitive Scrabble games together.

We set out to explore some of the villages our ancestors hailed from, and as promised, we spread Granny's ashes in the land of her ancestors. Granny never spoke Dutch or Friesian fluently, but she liked to cook lekkerbek (fried fish) and bake crispy kletskoppen (cookies). She and her sister explored Friesland back in the 70s while researching their family history through old documents and notes from stories of their grandmother’s immigration journey. I think it’s cool to know bits of family history, especially since my Afro-Caribbean family history (my father’s side) was forcibly erased.

Proud yet somewhat disconnected from her Friesian roots, Granny was always pleased that I had moved back to The Netherlands. For years, I begged her to come to visit me in Amsterdam and even offered to fly back and personally escort her over to Amsterdam. But she was well into her 90s by then and had finally given up trans-Atlantic travel after decades of exploring. Instead, we continued our life-long pen pal exchange, and I always made sure to send her a postcard or two during my travels.

During the course of our long weekend in Friesland, we visited a few small villages or dorpjes like Oudebildtzijl, searching for familiar names and historical ties to my grandmother’s kin. In the tiny village of Sint Annaparochie, we found graves of our kin dating back to the mid-1800s, and the adjacent church had a field full of orange flowers, her favorite color.

The first time I visited Friesland was more than 20 years ago, and life in this quaint, remote area felt just as I had remembered it from my childhood. The summer prior, we were in her hometown, a tiny farming village in North Dakota, for her memorial service, and I can’t help but realize the similarities. Granny grew up on a farm in South Dakota during the Great Depression, so I can imagine she felt a connection to the flat, expansive landscape of the Netherlands' most northern province.

On our first day, we spotted miniature ponies in a field, and the farmer invited us to play with them. Another afternoon, we just happened to pass by a dozen or so tractors on parade, farmers showing off their prized machinery while locals waved and cheered. I spotted a sign pointing to handmade clogs so, we pulled over and purchased some traditional Dutch klompen, that are still worn by farmers today. There were so many quintessential small-town moments, I know that Granny would have loved them all!

My grandmother was a massive influence on me, we shared a love of writing, culture, food, politics, and travel. She was a fierce Scrabble player, an open-minded and curious woman who was a proud feminist who campaigned for women’s education and independence. She was impressive, especially for a woman born in 1917 and raised on a midwestern farm in the Great Depression. She was born before women had the right to vote, and she supported groups like the League of Women Voters and Planned Parenthood but vocally loathed technology and refused to use the internet. Instead, she documented her travels on disposable cameras and made dozens of detailed scrapbooks. Essentially, she was a travel blogger long before that concept ever existed.

Amongst her many interesting hobbies, Granny loved being outside in nature and gardening. She taught me the art of 'doing nothing' because as she often mentioned, there's always something to discover while sitting quietly and enjoying a moment. Whether listening to the birds chirp in the trees, watching bees and flowers in their pollination dance, or simply enjoying the sun as it fades into dusk.

She loved spending time in the garden, whether doing a crossword puzzle with her morning coffee, tending to her flower beds, or harvesting fresh tomatoes in the summertime. As fate would have it, a lush, little garden was tucked behind the bed and breakfast where we stayed. It was full of colorful orange blooms (her favorite color), and big fat dew drops balanced on the leaves reminded me of so many tears I had shed over the past year. It seemed fitting to let a little bit of Granny’s spirit rest here. I read her favorite poem 'The Desiderata, ' out loud just like I did at her memorial service. We hugged, we cried, and we listened to the birds. I know that my darling Granny would have loved it.