Built For Welcome

I’ve been sick this week, and it’s been a little destabilizing.

Too much time in bed.

Too much time alone with my own thoughts.

But I think it needed to happen.

Today, something long held back finally broke open. A floodgate of grief that had been locked away in my psyche for years — not because it didn’t matter, but because I was busy surviving it. Busy getting over it. Busy moving on with life. I had already cried so much. I told myself there was nothing left to feel.

But today, it came back differently.

Quieter. Truer. Real.

I remembered — and I mourned — the gathering place I had created.

Not just a business.

A place built on my values, my leadership, my vision.

A grocery store designed not only for efficiency and process, but built for welcome.

A place where people felt like they belonged.

Where they were cared for.

Where they were seen and respected.

I remembered the warmth of it. The color. The movement. The way people moved through the space with familiarity and ease. Families. Elders. Employees. Regulars who didn’t need to explain themselves to be known.

I remembered that it wasn’t accidental.

Every choice carried intention.

Every detail held care.

Every wall absorbed years of daily life.

I built a place where welcome had a body.

And today, lying still long enough to let memory surface, I finally allowed myself to grieve that loss — not as failure, not as nostalgia, but as love.

Real love always leaves an imprint.

This wasn’t about holding on to the past.

It was about honoring what was true.

Because what I created mattered.

And the fact that it still moves me means it always will.

I didn’t just build a store.

I built a place people gathered — and gathering is sacred.

And even now, years later, my body remembers what my mind learned to set aside.

Some things don’t ask to be analyzed or resolved.

They ask to be felt.

Today, I let myself feel it.

And I wonder, how do I create the next place I build for welcome?