Matchbox Women – Origin Story

Annual holiday trip with the women in my family – mothers, aunts, cousins, and kids.

When I was little my grammy would sit me on her lap and rock me while singing softly or telling me stories. Rest, acceptance, comfort, safety – these were her gifts. She did this with me up until she died when I was 14. Size never mattered, you were never too big for grandma’s lap. Even my older cousins go their turn with grammy.

Every visit you had with her she always made special time to focus solely on you. She could sit you there, push the hair from your forehead, look in your eyes, and make all of life right again. She was magic and my Papa was her energy. She was class and mystery and grace and love-like-Jesus wrapped into the most restful, reassuring, energizing hug you ever felt. 

She was the glue and the foundation of our family. I miss her every day. 

In one of such rocking chair sessions I was sitting in grandma’s lap not wanting to go home (she lived about 5 hours away) and in my kid-like way asking how I could take her with me. She told me a story that her daddy told her, an Irishman named Cyril, when her momma died too early. 

My grandmother was one of four kids when her mother died and back then fathers didn’t raise kids alone while working. So the kids were split up between relatives’ homes until he could take another wife to raise and care for them. The siblings were sad at the loss of their mother and now the thought of being without each other and their dad was heartbreaking. He sat them down together and told them the “matchstick story”. 

Unbreakable

He held up one matchstick to them and said “when we are alone, we break easily”. He snapped the little matchstick easily between his two fingers. Then he held up two and showed how those also broke fairly easily. But as he added 3, 4, and so on, they were unbreakable. 

He said that God made them a family and that nothing could take them apart, not life, nor death, nor where they were sleeping. He said to remember this story and keep each other in their hearts because in so doing they would be stronger together and get through whatever came. 

She told me to remember that story too and the strength that comes with knowing she is always with me in my heart no matter where we are. 

 My grandmother, affectionately called, Grammy, and my grandfather also known as Papa. They are the beginning of everything for our family and me. 

My breaking

Fast forward 20 years and I am a California girl in Montana and lonely. No family and only a few friends. I loved Montana and my work, but the loneliness was beginning to break me. To help get the feelings out I would journal, write letters, and do bible studies. I spent early mornings before work in a coffee shop for an hour or so having my quiet time doing such things. 

Somewhere along the way I came across the statement ‘we are more than the sum of our parts’. To be honest I did not know what that really meant until I dug a bit more. One further description reads like this: more than the sum of our parts is used to say that something is better or more effective together as a team or in combination than would be expected when looking at the different parts that form it. 

I read this to mean – there is magic, a bit of mysterious strength, something like chutzpah that makes us more or maybe fully ourselves when we are together. We cannot do as much, go as far, dream as big, or achieve alone like we can together. It was that magic that I felt with the women of my family, kindled by the memories of my grandmother that I was missing most. 

Lonely, without the women in my family nearby, I felt lost. I took to writing them through email – like email marketing before it was a big thing – LOL! It was a bit of a lifeline for me to connect with them and recapture some of what I was missing. Through the course of this writing, I recalled the special story of the matchsticks from my great-grandfather, to my grandmother, to me. 

My connection

These are the OG Matchbox Women… These are my cousins who I lean on, share with, grow with, and stand by come what may. 

In need of that strength and hope I called the women I was writing to the “Matchbox Women” in honor of my grandmother’s story. This collective of women, still to this day, gives me hope, inspiration, support, and that bit of magic to keep believing in my dreams. They are my best friends, my biggest cheerleaders, and the most fun women I know!

Matchbox Women in this space was created to build a community where any woman can get hope, inspiration, support, and direction to live their dreams in life and work. It has also become the vessel by which I help other women discover their true self and merge or fuse it into their business through their authentic brand, a TrueYouBrand. 

For you

I invite you to make Matchbox Women your home to learn, feel supported, protected, and inspired to grow and dream. By joining the Matchbox Women community email list, you will get weekly content from me and special guests to help you do all these things and more.

Come along, you belong here. We are better together.