What do we do with grief, synchronicity, and the strange ways love keeps showing up?

In this episode, I sit down with one of my oldest and closest friends, Raphael “Rafi” Rozenberg. We met in 1997 and have lived through almost everything together—high-school chaos, fatherhood, marriages, losses, and all the weird twists of life in between.

Rafi opens up about growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home, the accident that changed his father forever, the years of miscarriages he and his wife endured, and what it was like to lose both his father and his brother Pete. We talk about the shock of Pete’s passing, the long slow process of grief, and how you keep putting one foot in front of the other when life keeps breaking you open.

We also talk about the strange synchronicity around Pete’s birthday—how a meditation that morning brought him to mind, and what it might mean when the people we’ve lost show up in ways we can’t explain.

From there, we explore the path that led Rafi to his creative calling: becoming a full-time artist who designs and paints intricate 3D-printed sculptures. His business, Dungeon Master Minis, is a stunning example of turning pain, beauty, and obsession into craft.

If you want to see his work or support what he’s building:
🔗 Website: https://www.dmminisus.com/
📸 Instagram: @dmminisus
🎵 TikTok: @dmminis

If the show resonates with you, it would mean the world if you’d follow the podcast in your favorite app or share this episode with a friend who might need it.

I close this episode with a reading from Thich Nhat Hanh, offered as a kind of quiet blessing for anyone carrying grief today.

Thank you for being here.

Want to share a thought?

Support the show

🔗 All links: https://linktr.ee/standingnowhere
🎧 Listen on your favorite app
💬 Join our community on Discord
📩 Email: [email protected]

(Tap “Support the show” above to become a Patron — thank you!)