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Today marks the final day of our 100 Woman Project, a special series we began on July 27 to count down 100 days before the 2020 election. 

We began with a profile of Emma Lazarus, whose poem is inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty; 100 days later, we conclude with the idea that important women aren’t just famous, but instead they’re each of us. 

That’s not to say that a lot of women haven’t made a lot of history in the last few months, among them:

Kamala Harris, the first Black woman to be nominated for vice president on a major party ticket, and who could — depending on today’s results — become the first woman vice president-elect; 

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September; the open seat on the court was filled by Amy Coney Barrett, who after an unprecedented 30-day Senate confirmation threatens decades of women’s and equal rights;

Astronaut Kate Rubins, who blasted off from Earth for the International Space Station in September and cast her ballot from space; 

Suffragists who fought 100 years ago for passage of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote, and Fannie Lou Hamer, who in 1964 reminded us that the right to vote isn’t universally applied;

Brooklyn-based sculptor Simone Leigh, the first Black woman to be selected to represent the United States at the prestigious Venice Biennale;

Nikole Hannah-Jones, editor of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The 1619 Project, who came under attack from the president when he called the project unAmerican and threatened to ban it from American public schools;

American poet Louise Glück, recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature; and

Dolly Parton, who just released her most recent Christmas album.

Through all that, we celebrated (socially distant and masked) Labor Day weekend, the start of fall, and Halloween and Daylight Saving time. Our children went back to school (sort of), college students returned to campus (sort of) and adults went back to work (sort of), though almost one million women didn’t because of pandemic-related family responsibilities.

And let’s be honest, how many chocolate chip cookies have we baked over the past few months using Ruth Wakefield’s Toll House cookie recipe?

If there’s one thing we learned in writing 99 women’s stories it’s that history repeats, and while we face challenges today that seem unprecedented, the women who came before us offer comfort, guidance and support as we work our way through this fraught time.

But it’s not just them; it’s in each one of us. Think about the woman you are, and the women in your life, and the lessons our own stories offer today. 

Like Andrea Ross, a frequent mutterhood contributor, who published her first book in August — a story Andrea believed in so completely that years after her initial draft Edith: The Rogue Rockefeller McCormick is now out in the world.

Or, on a personal note, my grandmother Mildred, who lived in the same small town for all of her 94 years, in the same house her husband built before they were married. She lived through two world wars and the Great Depression, and survived two husbands. She never lost her faith in God; used empty Cool Whip containers to hold leftovers; and woke up every Tuesday before dawn to bake dozens of biscuits for the men’s breakfast at church. She bought eggs from a nearby farm, ate Sunday dinners at the Trailways truck stop off the highway, called her half-sister every morning and night, and pieced quilt blocks as her own self-described therapy. 

I once asked Mildred, whose yellow plastic dish rack was always filled with silver foil and plastic bags, why she washed the tin foil and sandwich bags she used instead of just throwing them away. 

All she said was, “honey, if you’d lived through the times I have …” 

Ours are the stories we seek.