There's a version of me that only existed in her chair.

The one who got asked "Nikki b... got any gossip?" the second I walked in. The one who could hand her every messy detail about a friend, a boyfriend, a roommate, and not once worry about being judged for it. I told her everything — cheerleading drama when I was younger, then marriage and house buying/building and babies as I got older. The topics changed over the years. What we did with them never did.

She had this way of making the huge things feel small and the small things feel important, depending on which one you needed that day.

I remember calling her, frustrated, because my daughter Blakelee wouldn't touch a vegetable after starting solids — carrots, specifically. To me it felt like a real problem. To her, it was nothing. "Just put a little dab of sugar in it," she said, like it was nothing. I tried it the next day and of course Blakelee loved them. That was Meme — the answer was always right there and she never once made me feel silly for not already knowing it.

But if there's one thing she said more than anything else, it's this: "Well shuga... you may not want to hear what I have to say, but I'm going to say it anyway."

She said it my whole life. Not about one big moment — about everything. It wasn't a warning, not really. It was a promise. She was never going to just tell me what I wanted to hear to keep things easy. She loved me enough to say the true thing, every time, and she always gave me that one second to brace for it first.

I miss sitting in that chair with her more than I know how to say some nights. Not for any specific conversation — just for her presence. The way everything felt okay simply because she was there. Sometimes she wouldn't even have advice. She'd just say, "well, I don't know what to tell ya," and somehow even that was enough, because she was still right beside me.

I don't have a big lesson to wrap this one up with. Some memories don't need one. This is just her — gossip and a chair that held more of my life than I ever realized while I was living it.