If you are driving a car and suddenly find a black widow stepping off your long sleeve onto the back of your hand, there are some hard choices in your immediate future.

Grief is like that.

Some of us will try to remain calm while our brain screams and our heart nearly bursts. We will avoid panic, pull the car over, get out, and use a stick or something to remove the spider, who is probably very confused about how she ended up in a car, from the back of our hand.

Some of us will swerve the car to the side of the road, shake our arm violently to rid ourselves of the eight-legged death bringer from hell, and then will have to spend time figuring out where in the car we threw it – unable to move the car again until we find it. (Pretty much my choice when it happened to me. I was in a corner of the garage where the car charger was recently installed and I think I managed to pick her up on my sleeve without realizing it.)

Some of us will veer off the road in shock, screaming and crying and flailing our arm, only stopping when the car makes a sudden and unexpected intersection with a large tree – then bailing out of the car and running while watching the car burst into flames. (Come on, we all know someone who fits this description. I could easily have been this person myself, had I not had people and circumstances that helped keep me safe.)

When we lose someone special, we have some hard choices in our immediate future. And our experience, education, training and personality (as well as many other things) all play a part in determining how we will handle things.

It’s complex. Far too complex to condense meaningfully here in this article beyond saying that there are a lot of angles to consider. So many that I wrote a book about it called Gifts They Leave Us, available on Amazon, which I wrote as the book I wished I could have read as I made my way through the worst of my grief after losing my wife to cancer.

I think most of us agree that keeping the metaphorical car of our life on the road is probably a good thing. But when that spider is walking unexpectedly on the back of your hand, or you have experienced a terrible loss that jolts you and your entire world into focus on one thing, it is not easy to maintain control.

It wasn’t easy for me, for sure. I had my own moments of yelling. And crying. Of questioning. Of anger and uncertainty. All of which could have swept me right off the road entirely.

There are no easy answers here. Or anywhere that I could find. But there are things we can do to help ourselves to get through it.

A big part of that for me was writing. And sharing that writing with others going through their own terrible loss. Not only was I able to feel as though I was offering a ray of hope to others, but I was able to clarify things in my own mind through writing in ways that I did not fully understand or appreciate until sometime later. The process of writing the book helped give form to and descriptions of the things I was and continued to be experiencing, which quantified those experiences in a way that made them a little less overwhelming, a little more understandable.

And that helped me to offer myself grace for the times I fell apart. It allowed me to step outside of myself just enough to say, “If that were someone else, I would not only understand, but I would also offer applause. Or a hug.” And to realize that I would absolutely not be judging them.

That was one of many changes in perspective that helped me. It led to me saying to myself more than once, “She would not want you being so cruel to her husband,” when I was silently (or not so silently) berating myself for what I sometimes in the moment classified as weakness or inability. But which was actually just a lonely man facing a terrible loss and doing his best to be someone she would continue to be proud of, despite his own pain.

I don’t write that here as congratulatory self-aggrandizement. I write it here in the hope that someone reading it might spare themselves the lash of self-recrimination if occasionally they fail to meet their own standards of how to exist in the world when wrestling with terrible loss or trauma. Not only the loss of a spouse. It could be a parent. A friend. A girlfriend or boyfriend. Or not a person at all. We can grieve the loss of many things. A future we will not see. A career that unravels. A failing business. Illness or injury, ours or someone close to us, that forces us to reevaluate and restructure our lives. The loss of a beloved pet. Hopes and dreams that once seemed so close that now seem impossible to reach. All of these things and more can cause us to grieve.

We may live in a society where self-reliance and the old ‘return with your shield, or on it’ mentality prevails, but we are still human beings. We have feelings, hopes, dreams, and can experience pain in ways that are not necessarily physical. Ignoring that reality, or refusing to leave room for others to express that reality, doesn’t change the objective reality of its existence.

If you are grieving and feeling isolated and alone, I see you. And though each of us walks a different path through grief, I have likely stood in my metaphorical bare feet on asphalt just as hot, surrounded by brambles on all sides just as sharp, feeling hopeless as I continued to put one foot in front of the other while struggling to focus enough to remember to eat, hydrate, and sleep on something resembling a schedule. Been there. Done that. Didn’t buy the t-shirt, but I did write a book about it. I get it. I lived it.

Keep going. Some days you won’t be able to see the horizon, the things right in front of you requiring all your attention. That’s alright. It’s normal. Lean into it one step at a time. Be kind to yourself in the same way you would be to anyone else. Recognize the enormity of what has happened, and don’t minimize it by comparing it to the challenges of others. You feel what you feel and feeling does not make you weak – it makes you human. It makes you capable of great things. Including getting through grief.

It will leave scars. But scars are evidence of experience and healing. The Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold, called kintsugi, is a perfect metaphor for what we are going through. While our repairs are not made with gold, they can shine just as brightly once our work is finished. Our scars are proof of our shared humanity. Of our capacity to love. And to allow the broken parts of ourselves to become beautiful reminders of the life we have lived.

Wherever you are on that road through grief, I stand with you. And I imagine a lot of others do too. Though you may not see us, you can know we are here.

I stand with you.

Gifts They Leave Us has been available in print and as an eBook for a while now. Recently, I have been working on creating the audiobook version. It’s a labor of love but is very time consuming. I rarely get through more than a few pages before mispronouncing something or substituting a contraction for the two words printed. And then I start again. And if it isn’t something I did wrong, which happens most often, it’s something else.

Today, as I neared the end of a particularly lengthy reading and recording, someone’s investment in an exhaust system seemingly designed to make their vehicle more noticeable broke through all my efforts at creating a quiet space, forcing me to stop, get myself something to drink, and take a break before starting again. Water. I drank water. Though I admit drinking other stronger things did cross my mind in my irritation.

I spent some time with Kailee, my beautiful four-legged baby, telling her without reservation that she is the best and most beautiful of all, as any good parent to so wonderful a canine companion knows is required. It may be a law. One of those unwritten laws that, if broken, brands someone as a terrible person by all who know him. So, you see, I could hardly risk that.

Eventually my frustration with big sounds outside my control abated and I sat myself once again at my desk in front of a microphone. I even managed to get another long stretch recorded. It may have taken me a few attempts. But I did it. The last bit will need a bit of editing, but I am satisfied with the work I did today.

Then I got busy writing.

Writing is a habit that, like recording, requires patience with myself. And with time and effort, writing can see improvement in style and composition. You may have just cause to question my dedication, given what I consider to be a pretty sloppy writing style that is more free-writing than the more dignified and rarified composition styles of the masters. I will likely never know, as I am the sort to fuss endlessly in pursuit of something better – something I can feel represented my best effort on the day, no matter how far it may stray from the inimitable Strunk and White. Don’t get me wrong. That is not really a point of pride as much as a personality quirk that requires me to spend hours on a thirty-minute task. It’s frustrating. If you write, you may know what I am talking about.

Why bring all this up? Simple. It’s evidence of the way life keeps going. Some of us leave earlier than others, of course. But for those of us who remain here longer, the days can be filled in many ways. I recommend filling them in ways that make you feel, well, if not good, at least maybe better. Writing provides that for me.

After a career as a real estate broker that has spanned decades I am seeing my profession being gobbled up, dissected, and almost certainly will see it assume a new form over the next few years. It doesn’t really resemble what it was all those years ago these days. And the changes just keep on coming. I put together a video today explaining the changes from the ten-thousand feet view. In essence, large corporate interests are securing market share by gobbling up everything they can related to a real estate transaction in an effort to create a one-stop shop they hope will one day become the only place people can go for real estate services. If such things we have witnessed in the past are any guide, none of it will ultimately be good for consumers who will lack choices or price point options. Nor will it be good for real estate professionals uninterested in working for a corporate behemoth that sees only numbers.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not the sort who laments change. But let’s be mature enough to admit that some changes are not for the better. As I watch my profession being moved toward eventual monopoly, people like me forced into a “If you can’t beat’em, join’em” situation. The other option will likely end up being, “Retire.” It never occurred to me that I might one day find myself in the situation I now find myself in.

Am I angry? Not really. More sad than angry. So many years learning a system only to have the rules of the game changed as I near the finish line makes me feel sad and tired more than angry. In part because I know there are millions of others facing something similar right now.

Between the push toward monopolization in real estate sales, financing, escrow services, etc. and the move toward AI and away from human workforce, the writing is on the wall. In big thick permanent marker. For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for thee. And me.

But despite what likely seems a doom and gloom disposition about it all, I am actually pretty sunny. The last five years have been quite a ride. Some of it beautiful and terrible. Some of it beautiful and wonderful. All of it though, in case you missed it, beautiful. So, I have no real complaints.

These Messages From the Journey will sometimes, like today, be a bit of a mess. I may intellectually cartwheel across the page in disjointed and clumsy ways in an effort to get my thoughts across, but few would be likely to call me derivative in most cases. Other things, perhaps. Undisciplined. Chaotic. Formless. But also honest. Sincere. And usually with an eye toward human connection and the sharing of not just the what, but the why, of being human.

Thanks for taking the time to walk with me here for a few minutes. I sincerely appreciate you.

I am struggling a little bit today.

A lot of things in life now are both happy and sad. At the same time. A product of age, perhaps, for those of us fortunate to stick around a while.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a very happy man. I consider myself to be very lucky. I am married to an amazing woman. And I can say without hesitation that I’ve never been happier.

That doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy before. Only that I am happier now, in a way I am not sure I would have believed possible after losing a wife to cancer.

So why bring this up?

I’m getting a new car today. I already have two. I don’t need three. And for a lot of practical reasons, one of my current cars makes the most sense to trade in.

The thing is, that car was picked out by my late wife.

It’s not that I’m pining for her. It’s just a connection to that part of my life, and I’m letting it go. So, there is some, I think, understandable melancholy about it.

Knowing that I will be dropping that car off, never to be seen again, brings memories to the surface. Memories packed with emotion. Memories that take me momentarily to a very rough time, and to many years of connection with someone who is no longer here.

How could they not.

In Gifts They Leave Us, I wrote about the day I donated two cars to charity, and how unprepared I was for the impact of watching them roll away on the back of a car carrier.

This time, I’m prepared. Not that I won’t have feelings associated with what will happen later today. I will. No way around that, I think.

But this is not a goodbye. Just another in a long succession of changes that have led me to where I am now.

And I really like where I am now.

If any of this resonates with your journey, I get it.

And if you’re not yet in a place where this is your reality, I get that too. There is no timeline for grief. No straight line we can race to happiness and contentment.

If you are looking for a companion through those days of the journey, consider picking up my book. I wrote it as the book I wish I could have read when in the thick of my own grief. It’s available on Amazon.

I stand with you.

If any part of this met you in your own season of change, I’d love to hear what it stirred. - RW

Perspective doesn’t change the loss. It doesn’t make it hurt less. It doesn’t undo anything.

But perspective can change how we live with the loss.

For me, one shift came when I realized that grief wasn’t something happening to me - it was something happening because of love. That didn’t make the pain easier, but it made it make sense.

Another shift came when I stopped asking, “Why did this happen?” and started asking, “What do I do with this now?” That question didn’t have an answer at first. But it opened a door.

Perspective shifts aren’t lightning bolts. They’re slow, quiet, often born from exhaustion, reflection, or the smallest moment of clarity.

You don’t have to force them. They come when they come. And when they do, they don’t erase grief - they help you carry it.

I stand with you.

If any part of this met you where you are today, I’d love to hear what it stirred. - RW

One of the hardest parts of grief is the sheer number of decisions you’re forced to make at a time when you’re least capable of making them.

Big decisions. Small decisions. Decisions you never imagined you’d face alone.

And here’s the truth: grief breaks your internal compass. The world tilts. Your instincts feel unreliable. Even simple choices feel overwhelming.

If this is where you are, please hear this:

It’s okay to postpone decisions that don’t need to be made today.
It’s okay to ask for help.
It’s okay to choose the simplest option.
It’s okay to do nothing until you can breathe again.

Over time - longer than you think, shorter than you fear - your ability to choose returns. Slowly at first. Then with more confidence. Then with a sense of self you didn’t know you were rebuilding.

You don’t have to have clarity right now. You just have to keep going.

I stand with you.

If any part of this eased the pressure you’ve been carrying, I’d be honored to hear what shifted.

People talk about “moving on,” as if grief is a place you pack up and leave behind. I’ve never found that to be true.

What I learned - slowly, painfully, stubbornly - is that movement in grief looks nothing like movement anywhere else in life.

Some days, movement is microscopic.
Some days, it’s sideways.
Some days, it’s simply not collapsing.
Some days, it’s letting yourself collapse and then getting back up.

Movement can be emotional, practical, or barely perceptible. It can be paying a bill. Making a phone call. Walking to the mailbox. Or simply breathing through another hour.

When things are at their worst, any of these actions can be challenging and, in their own way, heroic.

And movement doesn’t mean leaving the person you lost behind. It means carrying them differently. It means letting the love they gave you become part of how you keep going.

“Moving with, not moving on” saved me. It gave me permission to keep living without feeling like I was abandoning the one I lost.

If you’re barely moving right now, that’s still movement. And it counts.

I stand with you.

If there’s one small movement you’re choosing today — even the tiniest one — I’d love to hear it. - RW

There’s something I wish more people understood about grief. The idea of “strength” gets wildly misunderstood.

In the early days, strength isn’t stoicism. It isn’t composure. It isn’t holding yourself together so others feel comfortable. It isn’t being “brave” in the way people sometimes say it, with that sympathetic tilt of the head.

In grief, real strength looks like survival.

It looks like getting out of bed when your body feels made of stone.
It looks like brushing your teeth when you don’t care about anything.
It looks like eating something - anything - when food tastes like cardboard.
It looks like crying until your ribs hurt.
It looks like telling the truth when someone asks how you’re doing.

Strength in grief is quiet, invisible, and often misunderstood. But it’s there. Every day you wake up and face a world that no longer makes sense, you are showing a kind of strength most people will never have to understand.

If no one has told you this lately: you’re doing better than you think. And you’re stronger than you know.

I stand with you.

If this reframing of strength resonates with you, I’d love to hear what part felt most true.

One of the concepts I talk about in my book, “Gifts They Leave Us,” is of “moving with” rather than “moving on.” It’s not easy. Nothing about the grief process is easy. But I think, in whatever form it takes for each of us, growing our life is an important part of getting us to a better place.

In the workbook I created to accompany Gifts They Leave Us, I used some images to represent this idea for each of the chapter headings. The images are simple, but they help make what I consider a very important idea more clear. Namely, that by expanding our lives, growing into new experiences and connections, we are not moving on, not trying to bury what was or what the person or people we have lost meant to us. Instead, we are making them and the gifts they leave us a part of who we are in the process of becoming.

The image I created here is just a way of explaining a concept. Of making clear the importance of choosing to grow while continuing to live. Some of us will choose to remain alone. A host of perfectly valid reasons may play into that. Some of us will seek new love. Or embrace it if we unexpectedly crash headlong into that opportunity. Some will travel. Some will read. Some will join clubs, pick up new hobbies, spend more time with family, find new work, volunteer our time to organizations we admire – the number and types of choices are vast. And the changes to the life we had before our loss may be small or very large.

There is no timeline.

The key is to choose. To make a conscious decision about what it is we want, going forward. Not moving on to avoid or forget. Moving with. Honoring them by carrying the gifts they leave us into the world. Boldly. Proudly. And with love.

(1) The first image shows us during a time when our grief is overwhelming. Everywhere in our life we look, the pain is there.

(2) But as we get through the terrible initial agony, when we are able to begin expanding our life even a little, we may find that the next time we reflect, while grief is still a huge part of our life, there is room for small things that are not pain.

(3) Over time, as we continue to forge ahead with expanding our life, that shift continues. The grief, and all the one we lost means to us, has not diminished. The circle of our life has expanded, making grief seem smaller relative to what we are becoming.

(4) All of us will have our own path to walk, to be sure. But in whatever ways we continue to expand the circle of our life…

(5) … the grief and pain, even if they remain unchanged, represent a smaller…

(6) … part of all that we are becoming.

(7) Some may find new love. Or choose not to. Some will find work. Adventure. Friends.

(8) How we grow our life, the ways we choose, are our own. But expanding our life, it matters.

(9) The grief and memories of those we have lost do not get smaller. Our lives get bigger. If we choose to allow it.

It isn’t that grief no longer exists. We have not removed it or hidden it away. We have not locked it behind a door, or in a safe. All of it, all the memories of love and joy and yes, even the pain of loss, is still there for us if we turn our focus on it.

But it is no longer all we can see or feel.

I offer a lot more detail about my own journey, and the ways my experience might help others, in “Gifts They Leave Us,” available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. And these images are used in the accompanying workbook, also available in paperback, for those who might benefit from having it.

This concept is not the only method of moving with our grief that I discuss in the book. But I think it is an important one. So, I wanted to share it here.

I stand with you.

If you’re carrying something today that deserves a little acknowledgment, this is a safe place to name it.

Winter always arrives. Though we may not know when the cool of Autumn will surrender to the cold of Winter, we can be certain that Winter will come – and that the cold will come with it.

The long days of warm Summer, the bright hues of Autumn leaves, will give way to the chill we resist with all our might.

When the ice and snow arrive, we will reminisce about our time in the sun.

Of Springs spent laughing, carefree and happy in a world of promise and opportunity.

Of Summers spent with those we love, languid in our warm certainty and the comfort of all that we have built around us.

Of Autumns building peace, honoring memories, and spending time in that too brief window between appreciation for what has been, what is, and what will yet be.

The snow lies deep now among the birches. Their silent alabaster strength an anchor to the sky for those of us feeling the icy wet of fresh snow on our boots. Their branches bare, testament to both past and future as they sway in the chilly breeze that precedes the coming storm.

There is peace in those moments. And dignity born of recognition and acceptance.

Can you see me as I stand here in the snow? Perhaps you stand in green Spring. Or warm Summer. Or among the dazzling explosion of color that is Autumn.

Perhaps you see me standing in silhouette, a shadow of what may be. Acknowledged, but unfocused.

It is enough to know that those standing now with me in the snow can see me. And I them.

And that we can see you, in whatever season you stand.

All of us among the birches.

Grief comes in many forms. And life teaches us new versions the longer we are here among the living.

I have reached the time of my life when friends and loved ones are dying, or suffering terrible maladies, more often now.

When I was younger, I was fortunate not to have lost many who were close to me. I lost grandparents in my early twenties, but I was so caught up in the day-to-day struggle to keep bread on the table that there was no room to explore what that loss meant to me until years later.

I lost my dad to cancer in 2012. Then my last surviving grandparent to cancer, and my mother-in-law to medical complications, in 2019. And then my wife to cancer in 2022.

While losing my dad impacted me deeply, there was time to process and heal afterwards. Since 2019, the loss of loved ones has impacted my life in ways I was insulated from when younger. Ways that have changed me, even when the lessons were painful.

This is not unusual, of course. Those of us lucky enough to live a while will all eventually face losing people we love. And a lot of us will have some of those losses in a relatively short period of time.

I know I am not alone in that experience.

After my wife died in 2022, I wrote a book about my journey through the grief process. And during that same time, I’ve watched two others I care about deteriorate.

My father-in-law, dad to my late wife, has struggled with his health. And that has become increasingly serious, recently landing him in the hospital and then a rehabilitation center where his recovery can be monitored by medical professionals.

My mother, who suffered a stroke some years ago, has begun losing more of her memory, her ability to store new memories, and, on the bad days, even the ability to carry a small portion of a conversation beyond acknowledging what I am saying.

They are both still here. And I am selfishly very glad about that. But the weight of what is happening to them both is in my thoughts a great deal.

Especially with my mom.

While my father-in-law is struggling with his health, he remains substantially himself. Sharp-witted, with a dry sense of humor and a twinkle in his eye despite the pain and losses of the last seven years. His struggles are painful to witness, of course. As it is with anyone we love.

With my mom, what is happening is different. The progression of dementia feels more unsettling.

A few days ago, I was thinking about how to create a sense of it for others.

Imagine being on a train with a loved one. You both see different things and meet different people, having different experiences, depending on where you sit on the train. But the train is pointed in the same direction for you both. And while you may be seated in different places, maybe even in different cars, you are not far from one another.

While it was tempting to tell myself the train was pointed to “the end,” that is not really the way I imagine it.

It is more like the train goes on forever, some of us leaving earlier, and some later.

So, in a way, watching my mom’s mental state decline is a bit like seeing the train slowing down as we approach a station. And wondering if this stop will be her last.

I know that eventually, sooner or later, she will get off the train at a station. Her journey will not necessarily end. It’s just that she will not be traveling forward with me anymore.

I will still be on the train, forced to wave goodbye to her as life (the train) takes me farther and farther from where she remains in that station.

Not because I want to.

No. Because she will be unable to follow. And I will still have places to go. People to meet. Things to accomplish. Children and grandchildren whose lives I want to be part of.

It is a sad truth about this human condition that we are all of us on our own journey and that, though we may travel for a time with others, the end of the line comes for us all.

The train keeps moving. And many remain aboard. But some will eventually exit the train at a stop, then watch us continue our journey from that place until they can no longer see us.

When I think of it this way, I am both sad and at peace. It’s strange, carrying both these emotional states simultaneously.

The sadness is the sense that eventually, with mom’s dementia, I may one day, maybe even soon, see her exit the train, walk into the station, and then watch her recede into the distance as the train carries me on to the next place.

The peace is the understanding that, from her perspective, whatever fear or anxiety she may have when that day comes may be counterbalanced with love and happiness that her son is making the most of his journey.

I like to think that is how I will feel about my kids, should I ever find myself at a point in my life where stepping off the train and into a station makes sense.

I realize not everyone thinks about these things. But I do.

It’s not exactly seeing into the future. But I think maybe it’s the closest I will ever get. Or, at the very least, a way to prepare myself for some likely eventualities that could otherwise take me unaware.

Grief keeps teaching us. Not through grand lessons, but through these small, inevitable moments when the train slows and we realize someone we love may soon step off.

I don’t know what the next station holds. Only that I’m listening more closely now. To the rhythm of the rails, to the breath of the people still beside me, to the quiet truth that love keeps traveling even when we part.

I don’t pretend to know how many more miles we have together. I only know that I want to be present for each one. When her station comes, I hope she feels held by love, not fear. And when the train carries me forward, I hope I can honor her by living the miles she can no longer travel.

That feels like the only preparation that matters.

When we lose a beloved spouse, something in us is undone. It isn’t simply grief — it is a forced unmaking, a quiet collapse of the self we once recognized. For some, there is no tidy recovery. Only the practiced smile that hides terrible pain, the simmering anger, and the ache of a life suddenly split into “before” and “after.”

As the months pass, the people around us may grow weary of the tears, the stories, the anger — the pain that refuses to resolve on schedule. From the outside looking in, it can appear as though someone is resisting reality. From the inside looking out, it can feel as if the world is asking for something impossible, and doing so with a kind of unintentional cruelty layered on top of the cruelty of the loss itself.

And part of what makes this so hard is that grief doesn’t unfold in a vacuum. We live inside stories — cultural, religious, inherited — that shape how loss is supposed to look, how long it should last, and what it ought to mean. Those stories can offer comfort, but they can also deepen the wound in ways we rarely acknowledge.

At the cultural level, we are steeped in narratives that tell us people are “taken” from us. Taken away. Taken home. Taken. In that framing, something has been done to the survivor — something deliberate, something devastating.

This narrative often arises within religious contexts, though not exclusively.

“God must have needed another angel.”

Likely meant to offer comfort or context, it can instead leave the grieving person feeling not only sad, angry, lonely, and disoriented — but guilty. Because if God “took” their spouse, then the only place to aim their anger is at the very being they were taught to trust.

So, in addition to grieving the loss of their partner, many find themselves suddenly confronting their own belief system.

This can happen in many ways. Sometimes belief is so deeply ingrained that we turn the questions inward:

“What did I do to deserve this?”

“Why did God take them from me?”

Sometimes the questions are handed to us by others:

“It’s all part of God’s plan.” “God works in mysterious ways.”

For me, even as a teenager, this framing never made sense. It’s part of why the youth minister and pastor at the church I attended told me there was no good reason for me to keep coming.

They were right, though not for the reasons they imagined. It wasn’t that I lacked faith or was unwilling to overlook the contradictions in their teachings. It was that my questions created a kind of cognitive dissonance they didn’t want to face — and certainly didn’t want me spreading among my peers.

My lack of conformity came from trust. I believed that if I asked sincere questions of the people entrusted with God’s message, real answers would follow. Not platitudes. Answers.

But platitudes were all they had. And when those failed, guilt and shame were the fallback tools. Even at fifteen, something in me knew that wasn’t truth. My desire to live honestly outweighed my desire to belong to the in-group. So, I walked away, and I never went back.

The anger and confusion faded quickly, but the early immersion in that belief system left me with an unusual vantage point. I can still see the world through the eyes of a believer, even though I am not one.

So, when someone says, “They’re in a better place,” I understand the intention. Believers have been taught to hear the meaning behind the words, not the words themselves.

Someone outside that belief system might hear, “They are happier dead than with you.” But the believer hears, “The one you lost is with God now, in a place more glorious than anything here. Be glad for them.”

The disconnect isn’t in the language — it’s in the assigned meaning. The context that softens the words for one person can sharpen them for another.

Take the phrase “washed in the blood of the Lamb.” Within the belief system, it’s symbolic and beautiful. Outside it, the imagery is jarring. But to the faithful, it represents sacrifice, redemption, and eternal life. To understand it as they do, one must have been taught the story early or must choose the comfort of the familiar narrative over the discomfort of questioning it.

I don’t fault anyone for choosing comfort. The world can be a harsh place. That I prefer not to shield myself with religious belief does not mean I judge those who do. And I know that for true believers, these aren’t metaphors or coping mechanisms — they are truth. If anything I write feels blasphemous, I ask their forgiveness; I am speaking only from my own experience.

There is real solace in a worldview that promises forgiveness, belonging, and a community that speaks the same language of faith. Those shared phrases — even the ones that sound hollow or painful to outsiders — can be a lifeline for those who believe them.

And this brings me back to the heart of it. As counterintuitive as it may seem, I think believers sometimes face an even more complicated grief. They must not only mourn the person they loved, but also wrestle with the questions their faith places before them.

Did their beloved pass through the Pearly Gates into God’s embrace? Will they themselves be worthy to join them someday? What if the answers feel uncertain?

These questions can add another layer of emotional and psychological weight to an already unbearable loss. For some, the grief is not only for the person who is gone, but for the shaken foundations of the story that once held their world together.

In the end, grief strips away every borrowed story. Whether we speak in scripture or in silence, whether we believe in heaven or simply in the love we shared, loss forces us to face the truth of our own hearts. I no longer try to make my grief fit someone else’s meaning.

What I know now is simpler: love changes us, and losing that love changes us again. And the way through — the only way I’ve found — is to tell the truth gently, to hold it clearly, and to walk beside one another in the places where no explanation can reach.

I stand with you.

It’s a strange time to be alive. Everywhere I look, something is shifting. Upheaval has become the new normal. It’s dizzying, this constant barrage of assaults on norms that shaped most of my life. Social norms. Political norms. Educational norms. Economic norms. Chaos has become ubiquitous.

Some of us will bury our heads in the sand, find what joy we can, and try to get through each day without new emotional, psychological, or physical scars. I will not judge those who take this path. They fight battles I know nothing about, on top of everything we can all see. Some of those battles, and the scars they’ve left, are impossible to ignore.

To them I say: Find what joy you can, brother or sister. Life is short. You have fought bravely, often without witnesses, without care for your injuries or sacrifices. Rest for a time in peace. I understand.

But some of us will face what we can, for as long as we can. Not because we are heroes. Not because we are better. But because the private battles we face leave room for us to do so. And that makes it our responsibility — for ourselves, for those we love, and for those unable to fight.

We must shine. Brightly. We must offer hope and light to those in darkness. We must embody what we hope the world might one day become.

Strong when we feel weak. Brave when we are afraid. Determined when the way ahead seems impossible. Kind when surrounded by cruelty. Honest when lies are expedient. Gentle when violence seems unavoidable. Loving when hate would be easier. Listening when telling would feel like a seduction.

We must shine.

Perhaps your light is dim today while another’s burns bright. Tomorrow may be your day to shine again. If all who are able shine as brightly as they can, together there will be enough.

Enough light. Enough love. Enough hope. Enough kindness. Enough strength. Enough bravery. Enough determination. Enough honesty. Enough gentleness. Enough listening. Enough of all the things we need from one another.

Stride with all your might into each day. Fill your heart with whatever hope you can muster, and offer goodness to the world. There are still those willing to offer you the same. They may simply be waiting for a sign that they are not alone. They may be waiting to see you shining your light.

I stand with you.

It may seem odd to people on the outside looking in, his notifying people that way. I get it, though. Easier than making individual calls at a time when the loss is overwhelming.

His friends, we all knew she was fading. We have all been talking with him about it. About the challenges of watching the one we love slowly fading away a little each day over time. About the helplessness one feels, like watching rain evaporating from hot asphalt in the summer, soon leaving no sign whatever that the rain was ever there. Our memory of it all that remains.

So, the text did not come as a surprise. Only a confirmation that what we all knew was coming had arrived at last. An unwelcome but inevitable visitor that would devastate our friend.

But we would be there. We have been showing up for him. As much as possible.

Our last breakfast meeting he and I spoke about my own experience having lost a wife to terrible illness. About the feelings associated with that. And about the ways I found to cope with, and to process, the mind-numbing challenges associated with grief.

We both knew the time was drawing near, though the words were not spoken.

We discussed many things that I wrote about in my book about that process, “Gifts They Leave Us,” available on Amazon. And that I had a copy of the book for him. He congratulated me. Was happy for me. But he asked me to wait to give it to him.

We talked about all the wonderful times he and his wife had lived. All the little stories he could share with me in those few hours. Of their early days as he courted her. Of the mementos in their home, meaningless to others who lacked the context of all the shared moments of those bygone days. But which held worlds of meaning for them. Of the memories of people, places, events, and love shared in joy through challenges and triumphs. And that all of it would soon be his alone to recall.

But he wasn’t ready for that yet, he said. And I understood. He wasn’t ready to acknowledge the day was soon coming when she would no longer be there to talk to, smile with, or just to see breathing softly while asleep. The slow inhale and exhale of her breath, the rise and fall of her chest, comforting in a way no words could ever properly convey. Each moment a reminder of all that had gone before, all the years together, all the challenges faced, the family raised, the grandchildren, and the tender moments of a life shared that are beautiful beyond words.

The text came a few hours after I had visited my late wife’s father in the hospital. He had a fall.

And then another fall, more serious. A black eye, a swollen upper lip, and various scrapes and contusions visible signs of the violence of gravity on an aged human body struggling to stand and function in the ways a lifetime had made commonplace but that the infirmity borne of time deprives us of in the end. If we are lucky.

So many do not get that far, our lives cut short more dramatically, if not more painfully.

Without judgment I listened to his perceptions regarding what it is to be so old, the body failing in ways that the mind can understand but that to the heart feels like a betrayal.

To the comments about how difficult it is to determine whether the efforts made to continue are worth suffering. Or whether, at the end, we might know that the fight is over, and that the time has come to lay down our burdens and accept what comes for us all with quiet dignity, as much as yet remains to us, rather than struggling with our last breath in the vain hope of yet another.

It was a philosophical discussion grounded in real-world examples and consequences. And with the moral ambiguity of individual human dignity versus cultural and familial expectations. We achieved no real answers, the two of us, as we discussed it there in that room. We reached only a quiet accord. An understanding borne of terrible personal loss.

Me – of a wife. A father. An uncle. Beloved grandparents.

Dad, of the crushing weight of losing his wife, and then his eldest daughter, in the span of only three years. That after losing a son many years earlier. His own parents and grandparents.

Both of us with our own list of losses that left us with scars. Scars that, while painful and slow healing, were evidence that those we loved once lived. That their lives mattered. That the things they did and said were important to us, who loved them.

Each of those things is a gift more precious than gold. Life and love affirming through the meanings we have assigned. Memories to cling to when the people are no longer there.

A friend’s wife died today.

And all those gifts of a life shared for many years are now his alone to organize, to treasure, and to share with those who remain in his life. His to gift to us as he moves with, not on, with all the gifts she left him.

Perhaps you know what I mean. Perhaps you carry your own scars. Your own gifts you seek to share. Your own attempts to immortalize the beauty of the ones you have lost, but whose beauty and light struggle on within your heart.

I stand with you.

Not because we failed, but because life asked us to tend to other things.

This week’s conversation sits with those unfinished places — not as shortcomings, but as parts of us that deserve kindness instead of judgment, gentleness rather than shame.

Some things in our lives move slowly on purpose.

They wait for the version of us who can meet them with clarity and care.

This week’s message rests in that truth.

We all have things like this. Objects that hold more meaning than their appearance suggests. A note. A photograph. A piece of jewelry. A recipe card. A key to a place that no longer exists.

These things remind us of who we’ve loved, who we’ve been, and who we’re still becoming.

Maybe you’ve come across something recently that brought you back to a moment you thought you’d forgotten. If so, I hope you let it speak to you. These small artifacts often carry the stories we most need to remember.

I stand with you.

The mind protects what the heart cannot yet bear.
We make lists.
We handle logistics.
We fold laundry.
We answer questions.
We keep moving because stopping would mean feeling everything at once.

If you’re in that place — functioning on the outside, unraveling on the inside — there is nothing wrong with you.
Your body is doing what bodies do: keeping you alive until you’re strong enough to feel.

I stand with you.

Not in flashy or attention-grabbing ways, but in the slow drift of ordinary days.

This week’s conversation is about what it means to find our way back — not through a grand reset, but through one small return that reminds us who we are.

And that may offer a glimpse of who we are becoming.

I think it’s fair to say that the experience changed my perspective about a lot of things. But if I am being honest, I have to admit that in many ways the change was toward what I knew was important. Or maybe toward what was more morally or ethically aligned with who I wanted to be. But I had, over time, allowed myself to drift away from them. Not far, in most cases. But still, I had to acknowledge in the dark and silent loneliness of loss that I had allowed myself to make compromises on issues that, while important, were perhaps not having a direct impact on my daily life.

I am not proud of that. At all.

But I forgive myself those compromises because I understand that in this world compromise is often the grease in the gears of the countless ways we interact with each other and the society in which we live. And I do take pride in the knowledge that, when the foundation of my day-to-day world, my marriage, ended due to a terrible illness, I was, despite my own pain, able to find myself again and to have an honest look in the mirror.

And that I was, with effort and attention to who I want to be in this world, able to shift myself back toward who I believed myself to be all along but had moved away from in various, not always obvious, ways.

Maybe you get it, too – maybe this has been, or may become, a part of your own walk down this road.

Perhaps a similar event shook loose the ties that bind you enough to allow you space to see things differently. To reevaluate. And to decide that every living moment is a fresh opportunity to reinvent yourself, toward or away from who you want to be in the world.

Whatever your version of this looks like – quiet, messy, unfinished – it’s real.

I stand with you.