My grandma’s house sat right there on Fort Myers Beach, a little blue cottage with the best porch for sipping sweet tea and watching the world go by. And then—poof—Hurricane Ian decided it didn’t like her décor and wiped it off the map.

Gone. Just…gone.

The house that smelled like cinnamon toast and sunscreen. The one where we played cards at the kitchen table while the ceiling fan clicked overhead. The one where she kept a jar of butterscotch candies even though no one actually liked them.

It was surreal, standing in front of what used to be her home, but was now just a pile of wood and sand and heartbreak. Jenny and Sam asked, “Where’s Grandma’s house?” and how do you even explain that to a couple of six-year-olds? “The ocean borrowed it” is what I went with.

But here’s the thing about my grandma—she’s the kind of woman who shakes her fist at hurricanes and keeps moving. She didn’t mourn the house for long. “It was just walls,” she told me, standing there in her bright pink visor, because no storm was going to mess with her sun protection game. “I’ve still got my people.”

And she’s right. The house is gone, but the memories aren’t. She still makes cinnamon toast, just in a different kitchen. We still play cards, just at my dining table now. And she still has that jar of butterscotch candies, because apparently, some habits don’t blow away, even in a Category 5.