Why I Created Yellow Brick Legacy

Yellow Brick Legacy didn’t begin as a business idea.

It began as a pattern.

In first grade, my teacher cast me as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. At six years old, I didn’t understand the symbolism — only that I loved the journey. The longing for home. The sense that something important was unfolding along the way.

Decades later, I reconnected with that same teacher. She remembereme vividly. She described qualities in me that had been present even then — curiosity, reflection, a desire to understand what matters beneath the surface.

How much of who we are is already there?

How much travels with us across decades, even when we forget?

In college, I studied religion — not from a doctrinal standpoint, but because I was drawn to questions of meaning. What do we believe? Why? How do rituals shape us? What carries forward when a life ends?

Those questions never left me.

Years later, when my father-in-law died, they became deeply personal. I watched how stories were told at his funeral. I noticed what brought comfort. What created connection. And what remained unspoken.

I realized how much of life is left unsaid — not because we don’t care, but because we rarely make time to articulate what matters most while we’re still here to say it.

Somewhere along the way, I saw the through-line.

Dorothy believed she had to travel far to find heart, courage, wisdom, and home. In the end, she discovered those qualities had been within her all along.

That realization — that meaning is not something we chase but something we uncover — is the foundation of Yellow Brick Legacy.

This work isn’t about planning for death.

It’s about living with clarity.

It’s about recognizing the themes that have followed you from childhood to now.

The values that shaped you.

The love that wants to be expressed clearly.

Yellow Brick Legacy is a guided, small-group experience designed to help you pause, reflect, and translate what matters most into a personal legacy letter — something tangible. Something real. Something someone you love can hold.

Because the road has been under your feet all along.

And you don’t have to walk it alone.

She remembered my braids and described qualities in me that had been present even then — curiosity, reflection, a desire to understand what matters beneath the surface. 

How much of who we are is already there?

How much travels with us across decades, even when we forget?

In college, I studied religion because I was drawn to questions of meaning — how we make sense of life, death, ritual, and belief. Those questions never really left me.

And then, when my father-in-law died, they became deeply personal. I watched how stories were told at his funeral. I felt the weight of what had been expressed — and what hadn’t. I saw how much clarity and comfort can come from words spoken in time.

Somewhere along the way, I realized something:

We are all walking our own yellow brick road.

Dorothy thought she needed to travel far to find heart, courage, wisdom, and home. In the end, she discovered those qualities had been within her all along.

Yellow Brick Legacy was created to help people do that same kind of noticing.

To pause.

To name what has always been there.

To put into words what matters most — while we are still here to say it.

This work isn’t about death.

It’s about continuity.

It’s about recognizing the themes that have followed you from childhood to now — and choosing to express them clearly, intentionally, and with love.

Because the road has been under your feet all along.