This photo was taken three years ago on a beautiful November morning in Skyline Chestnut Farm in La Honda, California. At the time, it felt like just another weekend spent with family and friends—lively, happy, but nothing out of the ordinary. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, the leaves were golden brown and rustling under our feet. My younger son, 4 at the time, was stumbling over the roots of 150-year-old chestnut trees as he ran to show off his bucket full of bounty. And my oldest, then 8, had found in the midst of it all a quiet nook in which to read a book: an abandoned car, probably left there many years ago, so rusty that it blended with the natural background. I watched my boy, shoulders relaxed and a look of concentration on his face, as he leaned back on the roof of the car and quietly flipped the pages. And just like that, a feeling of overwhelming happiness crept over me, as it does every time I look at this picture.

This photo of my grandmother, Nina Popova Kapanadze, was taken in Sukhumi, the capital of what is now considered the Republic of Abkhazia, on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, around 1954. Grandma Nina’s style has always been classic and tailored, and she’s only worn clothing that suits her perfectly. I love how happy and relaxed she looks in this picture, as she poses seaside in a polished gingham dress and walking sandals. It must have been a good day.

Grandma, now 92, has never worn anything off the rack. She’s either made her own clothes (a great skill to have during war rationing) or altered store-bought ones. In the 1940s, when trench coats were all the rage, she stayed up all night making herself one to wear to the premier of a traveling circus show the following night. Grandma and Grandpa were lead dancers in the city’s biggest dance troupe, so they never had a problem securing the best tickets to any show in town. Needles to say, no other woman at the … //READ MORE