Don-ations
Don-ations is the place you come to when you want to slow down and make sense of it all. It’s for the overthinkers, the feel-everythings, and anyone trying to grow without losing who they are. Some weeks it’s just me, other times I’m joined by friends who bring their own stories and perspectives. Together, we dive into the moments of love, healing, friendship, identity, and the messy middle of growing, and turn them into reminders that you’re not behind, you’re just becoming. I’m not here to fix you. I’m here to think it through with you.
Don-ations
The things we don’t ask end up being truths we never learn
This week, I’m talking about the questions we don’t ask and how they shape the stories we never get to hear. It’s about family, memory, and the kind of legacy that is shared in unforgettable ways.
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Legacy doesn't live in the things we rush through. It lives in the moments we slow down for. It lives in the questions we stop avoiding. And in the stories we finally tell. Welcome back to Donations. It's your host, Donovan. And it's that time of year again when the wind starts cooling down and there's a beautiful change going on outside. But it can also be easy to get swept up in it when it brings along Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas and then the New Year. And you already know they come one right after the other. And before you know it, you're just watching the days fly by, unable to keep up. And I know everything says rush, but it's really a time to slow down and reflect. So try not to get caught up in it and remember to claim a few of those days for yourself. The season isn't just about moving through it, it's about letting it move through you. The other day, I was outside, mid-workout, head down, working my way through the day's session, when I just happened to look up and I saw Miss Nancy walking across her yard towards me. You know Miss Nancy. I've talked about her plenty of times on the show. She lives in the house next to mine, and we're literally BFFs at this point. She always comes over when I'm out there and she says hello and she checks in and she tells me the story for the day. But this time immediately felt different. So instead of just pausing my workout clock, I completely stopped it and leaned in. And what I thought would be maybe a quick check-in turned into almost an hour-long conversation. I'm not even joking. She started telling me about a journal that her granddaughter gave her. And it was one of those journals with prompts where every page asks a question and it's a chance to really reflect. And her granddaughter gave it to her, hoping that Miss Nancy would fill the pages and tell a bit more of her story and then give it back so that her granddaughter could carry that story with her. And Miss Nancy said she skimmed through it and she read a couple of the prompts, but she didn't like what was coming up. She didn't like what the questions made her feel. So she put it away. She said it wasn't for her. And she asked me if I had ever read a book or worked in a journal like that. And I told her I had, and that she was right. Some of those things are uncomfortable to write about, much less think about. And when I said that, she asked me, How did I approach it? How did I get to a place where I could answer those questions? And I told her, I don't force it. If it feels too heavy, I just set it down and walk away. But I always try to come back because avoiding it forever just keeps the page buried. When we just plain avoid things in life, especially the kinds of things that scare us, those pages don't ever get turned. And she said, after that first uncomfortable feeling that she got, she told her granddaughter, I don't think this book is for me. And she tried to give it back to her. But her granddaughter was persistent and asked that she try again. And so to not let her down, Miss Nancy kept it. And she shared with me how some parts of her life were harder than others, and a lot of that was coming up for her when she read those prompts. And throughout her life, she never really asked why things were the way they were. They just always were. And I think we all do that. The more time we get used to things not making sense, the more we stop asking. When I was younger, my whys usually got shut down. Not in a bad way, just because I was a kid. And apparently kids don't need to know those things, the kinds of questions I was asking. They don't need to ask them or even ask why. And so I kind of held on to that mindset. And I kind of just learned to observe and accept. But I also think some of that is generational too. In my culture, we don't show our cracks, we tighten up, but we still crave release. And that's why cheese me is like a sport. It's easier to laugh at someone else's mess than to face our own. As an adult though, I'm starting to feel more freedom to ask those whys. Not just out loud, but internally. And little by little I'm learning asking is a totally normal thing. It's okay to want to know. And I told Miss Nancy that. And I told her that maybe the people we wanted to ask didn't ask either. And so they didn't have answers to give us, whether we asked or not. And for so long, our parents and their parents and their parents were just left wondering. They never asked, so they couldn't answer. And if we never ask, then we'll never know. And we keep the cycle going until someone finally decides to break it. And so maybe her granddaughter asking why is the beginning of that. And maybe her answer is the gift. Even if it feels incomplete or messy or whatever the case. And I almost said, Do you want to go inside and sit down and work on the questions together? But I stopped myself. It's her journal. Even if she was asking for help or just wanted my thoughts, she wasn't opening the pages and showing them to me. And I totally get that. I wasn't trying to overstep. And maybe that's where I've grown a little, learning to recognize when not to fix, when not to rescue, or rush to someone else's healing process. And with that, she told me she was ready to go back inside. But before she left, she said, I think I'm ready to write about a couple of things. She felt ready to look at some of those prompts again after our talk. And that made me feel good. She wasn't ready to look at all of them. Some of them still felt too heavy and too uncomfortable to even think twice about, but there were some that she was ready to talk about. And I thought, what a powerful thing to give someone the gift of being known. Even if it wasn't answering a prompt directly, she was more than ready and willing to share a story or two in the journal. And that's a win. Not for me, but for her and for her granddaughter. And for their legacy. And wouldn't you know it? The next morning, she calls me. This time it wasn't for a heart-to-heart. She needed help with her TV, which is a totally normal thing for us. Technology isn't always on her side. So I ran over, and when I got there, her kitchen table was covered in photo albums and notebook paper, pictures everywhere. She had the legacy journal open and was working on it. When we first talked in the yard the day before, she mentioned that when the prompts were too tough, she'd just skip it, right? Skip it or put the book away altogether. But standing there at her kitchen table, I realized she wasn't skipping anything. She literally glued old photos on top of the prompts that she didn't want to answer. And in doing that, she wasn't skipping, she was telling her own story. Not the one the page asked for, but the one she wanted to tell, the one that meant something to her. And they were beautiful photos. Along with her handwriting to the side, giving context and more of the story. Like literal moments frozen in time, full of texture and light. I mean, my phone's photo album is packed, but there was something about seeing hers that made me want to be more intentional. And her sharing it with me made me emotional. And I kept thinking in my head, don't cry in front of Miss Nancy, you'll scare her, make her think she's doing something bad. She wasn't just ready. She hadn't just picked the journal back up. She was transforming it, she was making it her own. And she showed me the photos she was adding and told me about the stories she was including and told me about how she was organizing all of them. And I could see how much thought she was putting into it. And then she told me the name of the journal, Legacy Journal, which is crazy because here I've been talking about legacy like it's a concept. I'm still wrapping my head around, right? And that's literally what she's been writing in this whole time. And then one of the biggest parts that got me was she had this photo where you could see my house in the background. And I pointed it out, and she lit up and she went digging in a drawer and pulled out this real estate postcard from when my house was listed years ago. And she said she'd saved it and she gave it to me. And that postcard that's going to be one of the first photos in my legacy journal. Full circle. You know, I keep thinking about that first day when we talked about everything and I stopped the clock. When I stopped my workout clock. I'm usually worried about losing momentum, uh, but what I gained in that moment was way more than reps or time. Because legacy doesn't live in the things we rush through. It lives in the moments we slow down for. It lives in the questions we stop avoiding and in the stories we finally tell. Legacy isn't what we leave behind, it's the silence we refuse to pass on. Do me a favor, grab your journal and write this out with me. What are the truths you've avoided passing down because they feel too heavy? And what do you think would happen if you shared them anyway? I think that's the kind of question a legacy journal asks. But really, it's the kind of question life keeps asking whether we write it down or not. Legacy isn't a big speech. It's the page you feel and the photo you glue down. And Miss Nancy reminded me we all have something worth handing over. Until the next one.