January 26, 2023 | Today would have been my grandmother’s birthday but she passed away last year. She was born on January 26, 1926 and she died on June 2, 2022. She shared the same birth and death year as Queen Elizabeth. Coincidence, I think not. Grandma would have loved knowing that she shared these dates becuase she loved and respected Queen.

Queen Elizabeth was royalty in England and my grandmother was royalty in our family. Not only did her birth and death dates line up with the Queen’s, they lined up in a harmonious succession almost like a rhyme of a poem or a perfect melody. If numbers lining up in a person’s life are any indication of a person’s style then it would definitely be a marker of my ‘grandmother’s style’. In my grandmother’s true fashion, this one little dash between the melodic dates exemplified my grandmother and her style. Nothing in her life was out of place. Her home was always in order, everything well kept and taken care of. Everything in home and her life exuded ‘simple elegance’. That is my grandmother in nutshell. My grandmother not only had style but she had her own style. She was a social butterfly and if social media had been developed during my grandma’s prime she definitely would have been an influencer.

Now lets get back to the little dash between the dates. There is a poem called, “The “Dash Between the Dates” by Lucille Britt. The poem reads:

THE DASH BETWEEN THE DATES

Memorial Day was over now,
All had left and I was alone,
I began to read the names and dates
Chiseled there on every stone.

The dates which showed whether it was Mom or Dad or daughter or baby son,
The dates were different but the amount
The same, there were two on every one,
It was then I noticed something,
It was but a simple line:
It was the dash between the dates Placed there, it stood for time.

All at once it dawned on me
How important that little line.
The dates placed there belonged to God,
But that line is yours and mine.

It’s God who gives this precious life
And God who takes away;
But that line between He gives to us
To do with what we may.

We know God’s written the first date down
Of each and every one,
And we know those hands will write again,
For the last date has to come.

We know He’ll write the last date down,
And soon, we know, for some.
But upon the line between my dates
I hope He’ll write “well done.”

© Lucille Britt

I came across this poem when I was twenty-six (26 – go figure another lined up number). I have never forgotten it. It is memorialized in my Feel Good Book that has everything in my life that makes me ‘feel good’. If I ever need inspiration or am feeling down all I do is open my book and I can’t help but feel good and smile. Today is no exception.

Now back to this tiny little dash from this amazing little poem. In my grandmothers case, when she arrived in heaven, God smiled at her and with such love gently whispered, “Life well lived, job well done!”

We all have our own style and have you ever thought what your style legacy will be? My grandmother gave me part of my style, and part of her style legacy will be carried on through me. I definitely have my own style and I have been expressing it ever since I was two and first understood what it meant to wear clothes and co-ordinate accessories. At that age I already had a pair of sunglasses and a little purse to compliment my outfit and even at that age. I knew what it meant to have style.

If I really check my heart in the quiet, still moments when you get in touch with your soul, the thing that inspires me the most is clothes, fashion, hair and makeup. But not overdone, where your makeup totally changes how you look. the ‘simple elegance’ of makeup and clothes used only to enhance your natural inherent beauty and style.

Today is January 26 and in honour of this perfect number and date, today is the day my ‘Ronda Style’ Blog goes live. This blog is an expression of my personal style. So this first post is dedicated to the woman who influenced and inspired my ‘simple elegance’ side of me. It is in her memory and dedicated to my grandmother’s style. I am delighted to welcome you to my new blog Ronda Style as it goes live today. Enjoy!