FOLLOW YOUR HEART

Excerpted from "Healing From a Grandmother's Heart." Used with permission.

My grandmother Edna's family came to America in the eighteenth century. The Larsons, my grandfather's family, were a much more recent arrival from Sweden and the cultural differences between the two families were vast. I asked Edna one day how she came to marry my granddad, Ivar. She told me that she fell in love immediately and they had eloped. Being a kid, I said, "Oooh, was your Mom mad?" Edna looked me squarely in the eye and said, "Baby, I never cared. And no one has had a better life than me. Trust your heart and you'll always win. The whole purpose of life is to live it, love it, and take a happy smile to God when you're done. I never gave a hoot about what anyone thought."