Who’s Your Shero?

March is Women’s History Month, a time when we pause to recognize the women who shaped the world we live in today.

I am a suffrage enthusiast with gratitude to the women who fought for the opportunities I have today. We will hear a lot this month about the women who came before us. The bad ass Sheroes like Ida B and RBG should be household names. Dr. Goodall’s passing added her to the ranks, and her contagious hope is carried forward by women like Malala Yousafzai and Greta, women shaping the world in powerful ways.

Most women shaping the world will never be famous. They are busy raising kids, helping neighbors, showing up for family, and doing the kind of work that quietly changes everything. They do it inside homes, classrooms, hospitals, and communities, raising the next generation and shaping the world in ways that rarely make headlines.

March also lands right in the middle of election season in a lot of places. I’ve spent years working as an election judge, and I’ve watched thousands of people walk up to a ballot box. Every time I see a woman step up to vote, I still have this little moment where I think about how recent that right actually is and how many stubborn, brilliant women had to raise hell to make that moment feel ordinary for the rest of us.

I’ve always thought of my feminism as pretty quiet. It shows up less in slogans and more in the way I try to show up for the people around me. Helping where I can, paying attention to the women who keep families running through impossible seasons, and trying to raise my girls to notice those women too. The ones holding things together behind the scenes, supporting each other, and shaping the next generation while nobody is handing them awards for it.

Real change often happens through example. Through the ripples we create when we show up for one another, lend a hand when it’s needed, and raise children who carry those values forward.

In my own life, my mother is the constant example of that strength, and my baby sister carries that legacy forward.

When my parents moved, I suddenly realized how much I had relied on them, especially my mom. Having that extra set of ears, memory, and voice at doctor appointments was like having the head of Mayo Clinic sitting beside you in the room. She had spent years teaching me how to advocate, how to listen carefully, and how to ask the questions that matter. When she moved away, it felt a little like being the baby bird pushed out of the nest. She had given me all the tools and shown me how to use them. It was simply time for me to fly.

I was incredibly lucky that my whole family chipped in and helped along the way. Raising two girls meant a calendar that looked like someone had attacked it with a highlighter. Doctor appointments, therapies, sports practices, school events, meetings, activities, repeat.

My youngest needed constant therapies and support, and if there was a therapy available, we tried it. If there was a social group that might help, we signed up. At the same time, I was determined that my oldest wouldn’t miss out on anything. I led her Girl Scout troop, coached her sports teams, and signed her up for every activity she ever wanted to try.

She became a fierce big sister, loving and protecting her younger sibling in the same way my baby sister had always loved and protected her.

My sister had always been part of the girls’ world from the very beginning. She is seven years older than my oldest daughter, and the two of them grew up almost like best friends. Watching them stand beside each other as maids of honor at their weddings later in life has been one of the great joys of my life.

Even back in high school she spent a lot of time babysitting and being with the girls, and somewhere along the way she became a safe space for them too. She was the fun aunt they trusted and confided in, someone who listened and understood them in a way that felt easy and natural.

Because she spent so much time with us, my youngest daughter’s therapies became part of her life as well. She observed sessions, asked questions, and absorbed everything she could about how to help a child grow, communicate, and connect with the world around them.

My family had always been the scaffolding around our busy life, and when my parents moved away and my sister was off at college, things simply shifted a little. My aunts and friends stepped in and helped in wonderful ways, but help from friends always carries a quiet sense of reciprocity. Even when it isn’t expected, you feel it.

Family feels different.
 Family simply shows up.

By that point I felt like I had things pretty well figured out. Life was busy, but it was good.

Then life did that weird thing it sometimes does and dropped an unexpected gift in my lap when my baby sister asked if she could move in with us.

When she moved in, she didn’t just become a roommate. She became part of the team that was raising my girls. She was my second set of hands, another adult voice when I needed backup, and someone who could step in when life became overwhelming.

What made it special wasn’t just that she helped with logistics. She immersed herself completely in our world and showed up with endless curiosity, social skill ideas, and a genuine desire to learn everything she could.

Instead of navigating everything alone, I suddenly had a sounding board. We shared information, comparing therapy strategies, social ideas, and communication techniques while figuring out together what might help my daughter succeed.

Looking back now, I can see how much those years shaped her life as well.

Fast forward a few years and now she’s a speech pathologist helping students and educators through her work in classrooms and with Thoughtful Talk. She spends her days doing exactly what she practiced in our home all those years ago, helping children find their voices and helping the adults around them understand how to support them.

Long before that career ever existed, she was already doing the work.

My daughters gained something priceless through all of it. She became someone they trusted deeply, someone they could talk to when they needed another perspective, someone who could help them sort through things and sometimes even help bridge conversations back to me.

She was their advocate, their big sister, and their protector.

She also gave my oldest daughter something incredibly important: the freedom to stop always feeling responsible for watching out for her younger sister and simply be a kid sometimes.

Because my sister was there, loving them just as fiercely as I did.

There is something special about being far enough apart in age that I was able to love my baby sister almost like another parent would. I always wanted to protect her, cheer for her, and make sure she knew how deeply she was loved in the same way my own mother made me feel growing up.

My mom is a Shero in her own right, raising five daughters alongside our wonderful father, but the Shero I want to honor today is quieter about her strength.

She is shy and brave at the same time, kind and wise, a devoted wife and mother, and a steady presence in our lives.

My baby sister.
 Tricia.

It’s funny how life comes full circle.

Years ago she stepped into my life at exactly the moment I needed her most and helped raise my girls, giving them another adult who loved them fiercely and stood firmly in their corner.

Now I get to watch her raising her own twins, and there is something really special about seeing my daughters watch that too. They’re not just remembering the aunt who helped shape their childhood. They’re now watching the mother she has become and the example she is setting for her own children.

That’s what legacy actually looks like. It isn’t loud and it usually doesn’t make headlines.

It lives in the daily choices women make over and over again to love well, show up, pay attention, and pour what they’ve learned into the next generation.

My girls got to grow up with that love, and now they get to see it carried forward.

I’ve also been lucky that one of my sisters now lives nearby with her own kids, and suddenly I find myself in a different place in the story. I’m the aunt who gets to show up, lend a hand, listen, laugh, and help.

Watching Tricia all those years taught me what that role can look like at its very best.

She showed me how powerful it is to simply show up again and again with loyalty, patience, and love. If I am lucky, I’ll be even half the aunt to my nieces and nephews that she has been to my girls.

Because that kind of love changes families.

It gives children another safe place to land, another adult who believes in them, and another voice helping guide them through the world.

That’s the kind of Shero she is.

Not just because of what she gave our family back then, but because of what she’s building now.

And that is the kind of legacy that lasts.