I never got to meet you.

I've heard dozens of stories about you and who you were as a person. I've learned how you lived your life, and how you loved the friends and family around you. I've tasted your cooking in the recipes that you left for family to recreate. I've held your handiwork in the dolls you made for my mother.

I never got to meet you, but I know you.

I know that you've been beside me from a very young age, watching over me from the time I laid in a crib to now as I sit in my college dorm room, writing this letter to you. I know that your heart, and your love has shaped the person I am today, from the effect you left on the lives of those that raised me. I know that had I been blessed enough to meet you, I would have found myself met with unconditional love and support.

I think about you often, about what you'd think of me and what my life would be like if I had gotten to meet you. In a way, I am blessed that I never got the chance, because I can say I have had a guardian angel from the very second I was born. It was you who pulled me and my mother through the complications and dangers of my birth. It was you who gave me the strength and love to continue during the breaking of a family. It was you who guided me through the painful death of a close friend. It was you who braved injury and illness with me, never letting me give up. It was you who held my slipping graduation cap on my head as I walked across the stage.

I like to think that if I had ever met you, we would have gotten along fantastically. I hope that I could have learned even more from you, about grace and humility and strength. My mom talks about you often, about the amazing role model that you were and how lucky she was to have you. Her favorite line has been "my Nana was the best Nana." Now I have a Nana of my own, and might want to dispute that fact, it still speaks as a testament to just how amazing you were.

For twenty years, our family has lived without you and your loving, caring energy. For twenty years, we have brought new babies into the world and expanded this family . Though unfortunately my eighteen years were too late to ever meet you in person, I have met you in spirit and in love. All my life, no matter where I was or what I was doing, I have never been without a friend, and that silent comfort has always been you. My mother told me once that "angels walk among us", and I know this to be more than true, because I have felt you walking with me, every day since I was born.

Thank you for everything, Great Na. I can't wait to meet you one day.