On legacy, love without an invoice, and the harvest you did not know was growing.
I am writing this from my side of the door—the one I opened with welcoming arms to someone else. I am here relaxing on a verandah that has bloomed from that one act decades ago, without any expectation of favors in return. But being kind and paying it forward is not love with an invoice, and that, my dear ones, is the soul behind this reflection.
I started writing this on Sunday morning for my Sunday Rs, but I didn’t finish because I didn’t want to rush, and I also wanted to be present in those moments. So I closed the screens, stepped away from my writing desk, and soaked in every moment with my family.
I simply documented the moments as they unfolded—capturing the memories I am sharing with you here today because this moment is worthy of being told.
From my camera roll: Writing by the lake, with a little wine and my own love story nearby. This is my side of the door. 🌹
I slept a little later than usual. Even after a party, I was the last person to wake up. There was no alarm, no urgency, and no reason to apologize for waking up late, either.
The night before, we celebrated my sister’s 60th birthday. During her vote of thanks, she brought up a story I hadn’t thought about in years. She remembered living with me when my son announced that one of his high-school friends from Jamaica was coming to America and would be staying with us.
According to my sister, my son didn’t ask me, he told me. Apparently, my house had already been volunteered.
That one visit eventually led to my son’s best friend becoming another son of mine. And from there, his relationship with our entire family bloomed.
Decades have passed since then. The boys are men now, with families, lives, and accomplishments of their own.
This weekend, that same young man and his family hosted my sister’s 60th birthday celebration in a beautiful event space he owns. They poured so much care into making her evening special, it was far beyond anything she could have imagined.
The following morning, in the quiet of my own voice, the lake and nature, as I meditated, I had an aha moment. I looked around at my family enjoying the weekend on properties and businesses owned by this young man I once welcomed into my home. I thought about his ambition, how good God is, and in that moment my thought was: Look at what one open door became.
| Sometimes you do get to enjoy the seeds you planted. |
There was no grand vision attached to opening my home all those years ago. I wasn’t thinking about legacy. I was simply taking care of people and extending my heart to someone who needed me, because that is what I do, and that’s how we, my siblings and I, were raised.
But that’s the part that I have been sitting with all weekend: the domino effect of opening a door for someone, be it me, a full-time entrepreneur; a young lady you interview who clearly has the potential, but not the stipulated experience; or a young man migrating from his familiar into the vast unknown.
From my camera roll: Sitting by the lake enjoying a bowl of warm cornmeal porridge topped with crushed Jamaican Excelsior water crackers—a sweet taste of home, sisterhood, and morning stillness. Jamaicans or Caribbean people can certainly identify with this.
Love given with an invoice attached is not the kind of love I am talking about.
I mean the things we do without knowing where they will lead: the extra plate at the table, the place to sleep, the child who isn’t yours whom you begin loving as though they are. The countless ways we make room for others without stopping to calculate what that might cost us.
| We don’t get to see where those decisions are going while we are making them. |
You might have seeds just like that in your own life. Perhaps yours was an open door too, or encouragement given right when someone needed it most. A meal, a ride, an introduction, a place to land, or time you gave when you could have spent it elsewhere, love extended without requiring proof that it would ever find its way back to you.
We do these things and we keep on living. Years pass, people grow, and lives take different directions. Then one day, we look around and realize that what felt completely ordinary when we gave it became part of someone else’s foundation.
| Sometimes God allows us to see the evidence. |
In that moment by the lake, I assessed my life and I repeated a powerful prayer of gratitude, out loud, almost like a testimony, because I am living in abundance.
A bank balance can tell me what I have available today, but it cannot tell me the value of my life. It cannot calculate decades of love, nor can it measure the people I made room for or the relationships that grew because somebody once had somewhere to belong.
Perhaps that’s one of the true gifts of getting older: you begin to see the long game. You recognize that some harvests take decades, some blessings do not arrive as checks, and sometimes provision looks like someone saying, Mommy, we’ve got you.
Today, I can see the harvest. Some of it has money attached to it, but much of the most valuable part does not.
What a blessing it is to have lived long enough to recognize the difference.
Verandah Reflection
As a new week begins, my ritual is simple. I am pocketing the stillness of Sunday morning and holding it gently, full of gratitude for the people who became family and the harvest I did not know was growing.
Have you ever given love, time, or an open door to someone without knowing where it would lead? Looking at your life now, where might you already be enjoying the seeds you planted?
From my camera roll: Feet up, resting by the water with Webs, Love & Fireworks in my lap. 📚☕️✨
With my sweet love,
xo, Marcia 🌹
From My Side of the Door
A few things from my Verandah that hold some of the same threads of home, reflection, love, and the life we create along the way.
The AUBRIEA Candle Collection — the scent of a slow August afternoon.
Heart is Home Journal — seven days of self-love and reflection.
Webs, Love & Fireworks — the escape you did not know you needed.