Every February, I enjoy showering family and friends with a little extra love. But in February, I also celebrate the birthday of my grandmother who covered me with the fiercest love I’ve ever known.

A grandmother’s love is a sustaining force, carried in the hearts of those she’s nurtured. It becomes both a sword and shield — strength in the battle, refuge in the storm.

Fondly known as Veenie, my grandmother was born in the 1920s to a family of thirteen children in Jacksonville, Florida. Her humble beginnings braced her for a harsh world. Life demanded resilience from her early on and she met it headfirst — sharpening the sword and reinforcing the shield she would one day pass down to me.

Veenie was a force. She was stern, sharp-tongued and always sharply dressed. She drove an olive-green Ford Pinto and believed in staying ready for whatever the world might bring. The year I turned five, I began spending summers with her. In her care, I learned to be curious, adventurous, and self-sufficient.

At home, there was always a chore to complete or a lesson to be mastered. But at my grandmother’s house, my time was my own. I explored freely, ate fallen dates at the base of the neighbor’s tree, and plucked honeysuckle flowers to taste their sweetness. I learned to climb trees. Cradled in the branches, I’d offer my daydreams to the sky in the hopes they would one day come true.

Every afternoon, my grandmother sat on the porch keeping quiet watch over the neighborhood. I’d sit at her feet, eating as many sweets as my belly could hold. Together, we would watch commuters step off the bus after a long day’s work. They exchanged pleasantries as they passed, a ritual that felt important. I felt a deep sense of pride and reverence just to be included.

There wasn’t much that my grandmother denied me, and so summer was always my season of yes. When I developed a love for seafood, she cooked fresh crab whenever I asked. Each morning, she let me join her for coffee, fixing mine with extra milk and sugar so I could sip alongside her.

My grandmother departed this world when I was fourteen. As I moved through adolescence, I often wondered what advice she would have given me. I felt certain she would have been my staunchest ally — especially in the fight to convince my parents to give me more freedom. It wasn’t until college that I began to feel her presence again. Being away from home for the first time was daunting. Yet, despite the challenges, things seemed to work out in my favor in ways I couldn’t explain.

Some might have called it luck. I knew better. I was very certain my grandmother’s heavenly hand was outstretched, covering me. She was the angel encamped about me, and the wise shepherd nudging me away from more missteps than I care to count.

My grandmother’s love has been my greatest blessing — an invaluable inheritance. Life hardened her, but she was always soft with me. As a Black woman, it often feels that the world is determined to harden me, too. But my grandmother gave me something powerful: the ability to remain loving, even in the toughest circumstances.

That gift stays with me, no matter what the world throws my way. Because the thing about a grandmother’s love — if you’ve had the privilege of experiencing it — is that the world didn’t give that love . . . and so the world can never take it away.