Grandma passed away four years ago. The following is the eulogy I gave at her memorial service.

Grandma moved in with us when I was very young. She was a part of the family, and she helped my mother and my father raise me and my brother. I suppose that the prime directive of raising two boys is to get them through adolescence without allowing them to cause excessive harm to themselves or others. And as a testament to their success in that endeavor, my brother, Mark, and I are here today.

But if I were to claim that grandma only kept me out of harm’s way, I would be failing to recognize the deep impact she had on my life—on making me the person I am today. And while she influenced me in many ways, there was one lesson she taught me that stands above all others. It’s a lesson that she repeated throughout her life—to me and to everyone who came in contact with her. She never forced it on anyone, and most of the time you might not have recognized that she was offering a lesson at all. I didn’t. I didn’t realize it until many years after she started teaching it to me.

When I was young, I realized that grandma had a unique way of seeing the world. While other adults would talk about difficulties, she would talk about joys. When other adults would talk about how cold and rainy it was outside, she would talk about how warm and cozy it was inside. I thought that she just didn’t see somethings that other people saw—that she had some sort of blind spot for those things that most people dwell on.

Years passed, and I grew older. Eventually, I could talk to her as an adult. And as an adult, I realized something: I had been naive. She wasn’t missing anything. She could see the difficulties and travails of life just as well as anyone else. The difference between her and everyone else was that she had an amazing ability to put the bad aside, and focus on the good. She wasn’t an optimist because she couldn’t see the down side of a situation. She was an optimist because she chose to embrace the up side of all situations. Her optimism was intentional.

Grandma never tried to convince me that I should practice her brand of intentional optimism. No, she was content to let me become my own person, to find my own way. All the while—through my childhood and beyond—she was a presence, offering herself as an example of one way to see the world.

None of us can go through life without affecting, and being affected by, the people around us. Grandma lived for 96 years. Many people loved her, and she loved many people. In one way or another, she touched every one of us. When someone like Grandma passes on, those of us who loved her struggle to find a way to honor her and everything that she gave to us. I’m glad that we could all come here today to remember and honor her. But after we leave here, and return home, she will still be with us. Each of us has the opportunity to continue honoring her by embracing that most important lesson that she taught all of us: that we can choose to see the joy, the up side, the good in any situation. I know that every time I practice intentional optimism, a part of her carries on. And in that way, she will always be with me.