The most beautiful people often know reality all too well. They have endured trials and tests that have allowed them to achieve a wisdom few will come to understand. The concept most fail to grasp is faith. Faith in others, faith in oneself. There will be people that will come into your life, either for forever or for a short time, that will teach you to have hope in the world.

My grandma had a timeless soul, a voice that could fill a room, overflowing it with all the warmth and emotions that only a grandmother is capable of. Her small, wrinkled hands seemed strong enough to hold the weight of the world. Her love could cross oceans, and it made you feel as though you could, too.

In her home, my grandma had a door frame dedicated to marking the heights of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Numbers, dates, names climbed their way up the aging wood, growing fuller as the years passed, as youth came and went. Every one of us filled with excitement as it came time again to mark our height, measuring our growth and feeling one step closer to being a “big kid.”

Little did we realize that as our numbers grew, the years were slipping away, along with our time spent with the person who brought us so much happiness. The house in which the door frame resided began to sigh with age, the floors began to creak when you stepped in just the right places. The painted wood, now inscribed with the fingerprints of a growing child, remained the firm foundation around that of a place that held so many childhood memories.

My grandma was not perfect. She was loud, and stubborn, and could argue with you until you forgot what point you were making. But she was also fearless, and inspiring, and the most kind-hearted person I would ever come to meet. In June of 2017, my grandma claimed her place in Heaven, just months before Hurricane Harvey claimed her home and flooded the walls of my childhood haven. The devastation overwhelmed my family’s hearts, but from the midst of the wreckage, the door frame remained.

There will be people and trials that will come into your life and test you, they will push you to your limits. One thing that I’ve had trouble coming to terms with is that not everyone is going to be on your side, to want whats best for you. But for each one of these people, there is another waiting to lift you up. Despite the seemingly growing number of bad things happening in the world, it is important to find hope in the small things; find peace in a grandmother’s unconditional love, in a weathered door frame.