“Life is not the work of one person alone. It is the result of many minds and many souls working together through many years of joy and hard work” 

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I can still hear my aunt telling me these words in her colorful apartment back home in Sweden. I spent many summers of my childhood with her— following closely behind so I could cling on to every last word she said. As she showed me around our ancestral land, taking me to the rivers she swam as a girl and teaching me how to skip rocks, she often told me stories of an ancient dinosaur civilization. Saltasauras Sophie was always the main character of her tales— she made me the queen of the ancient monarch of dinosaurs. 

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But that’s just how Auntie IKEA was. She spent much of her life paying tribute to those around her, appreciating any and everything that the people and environment provided her. This was the quality of her heart— making the most out of the mundane, turning the simplicity of life into a grand beauty. She was selfless and inclusive. She was gentle and kind, yet bold and unwavering. She was so many things at once, but above all she had what I can only describe as a magnetic pull. People were simply drawn to her.

 

Once, when I was young and embarrassed of her brazen approach to strangers while in public, I asked her in a snotty tone why she had to talk to everyone when we were out in public. So she told me her philosophy: Tillsammans. Tillsammans means togetherness in Swedish. She told me that we are the best versions of ourselves when we can trust the community we live in. When we pull in the same direction. When we don’t allow anyone to go unnoticed or under-served. 

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I know I speak for all of us when I say IKEA truly embodied this idea. She made each one of us feel seen and appreciated. She showed each of us her love through home-cooked meals, through her curiosity of our lives, through a consistent support you could always trust.

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Auntie IKEA is unlike anyone I have ever known. When I think of her, I think of an eternal life. I think of my mother and my brothers. I think of all the summers we spent at her home. I think of blue and yellow, her favorite colors after the blue-and-yellow tanager bird that used to visit her windowsill when she lived in Stockholm. 

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May we all remember IKEA by these words: “Life is not the work of one person alone. It is the result of many minds and many souls” thank you.