Why Grandma refuses to ‘remove’ third parties

The conversation started before dinner

Nobody in this family agrees quietly. The question was simple enough; the answers were not. She thinks the phrase gives a stranger far too important a role in your own decisions.

“Know what happened. Be careful deciding what it means.”

That distinction—between an event and the story attached to it—became the part we kept returning to. Not because it settles everything, but because it changes the quality of the argument.