ReFraming Life

At thirteen, I wrote eight words in a notebook that puzzled me for a lifetime: I am what I am because I am.

I spent decades wondering what made me, me, and how much influence I had over who I might still become. I didn't find the answer in solitude. I found it in being truly seen by another person. In this final episode, Part 1, I share how Adel became a mirror, not telling me who I should be, but allowing me to recognize more completely who I already was, and who I was capable of becoming.

She didn't make me complete. She helped me become more fully me. And when only one of us remained, what we had built together didn't simply disappear. It was already part of me.

This episode is part of My Soulmate Named Adel - a 20-part true love story about what it means to truly love someone.

▶ Watch the series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM8n39OazCrh6ssqOq8Ee3-mNYsdOlv3F

📬 ReFraming Life Weekly Letter on Substack: https://kentwaugh.substack.com/

For months after Adel died, I thought I had two choices. Hold on to her by staying in pain or move on and leave her behind.

In Episode 19, I share why both of those felt wrong, and what Adel herself taught me months before she died. When we sat with a young man grieving his best friend, Adel and I told him: you don't have to stay for me; you can go in peace; I'll be all right. I had no idea I would one day have to say those same words to her.

This is about learning to live forward, not moving on from love, but carrying everything love built within us into the life still in front of us. Maybe sometimes our ability to feel joy after loss isn't evidence we loved less. Maybe it's possible because we got to love that much.

This episode is part of My Soulmate Named Adel — a 20-part true love story about what it means to truly love someone.

▶ Watch the series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM8n39OazCrh6ssqOq8Ee3-mNYsdOlv3F

📬 ReFraming Life Weekly Letter on Substack: https://kentwaugh.substack.com/

🎙️ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6nKm4EerZk1sfsCR6yUMZU

🎙️ Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reframing-life/id1876090703

🎧 All episodes: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2531525

#lovestory #soulmate #loveafterloss #griefandlove #livingforward #truelovestory #lifeafterloss

Adel and I never talked about getting rich. We talked about building two kinds of wealth, one you can count in a bank account, and one you can only count in memories.

For years we lived by a quiet practice we called Two Banks. One bank held our future, the savings, the security, the responsible plan. The other held our life, the Wednesdays we protected, the ordinary evenings we turned into memories on purpose. We tried never to rob one to feed the other.

In Episode 18, I share what that practice taught us about love, money, and what really matters, and why it's the reason I still feel resourced today, even after Adel is gone. This isn't a lesson about finance. It's about how love quietly teaches you to invest in moments while you still have them.

This episode is part of My Soulmate Named Adel, a 20-part true love story about what it means to truly love someone.

▶ Watch the series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLM8n39OazCrh6ssqOq8Ee3-mNYsdOlv3F

📬 ReFraming Life Weekly Letter — Substack: https://kentwaugh.substack.com/

🎙️ Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6nKm4EerZk1sfsCR6yUMZU

🎙️ Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reframing-life/id1876090703

🎧 All episodes: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2531525

#lovestory #redstring #soulmate #loveafterloss #truelovestory #griefandlove #emotionalstorytelling

When Adel passed away, most people assumed the hardest part would be learning to live without her. For a while, I assumed that too. But looking back now, something very different was happening, something I only began to understand on a ferry, alone among strangers, feeling not empty but somehow whole. This is the episode where I finally feel ready to ask the question I've been carrying: what does extraordinary love actually leave behind?

In this episode, you'll hear the piece I wrote years ago, "Empowered To Be Alone", and realize I understood it wrong the first time. I thought it was about learning to be alone. It wasn't. It was about something Adel and I had been building together, conversation by conversation, choice by choice, a foundation that kept shaping me long after she was gone. Part of the 20-part true love story: My Soulmate Named Adel.

Subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.
https://open.spotify.com/show/6nKm4EerZk1sfsCR6yUMZU
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reframing-life/id1876090703

Some moments arrive without announcement, and you spend the rest of your life replaying them, searching for clues you didn't recognize at the time. The last real conversation. The unexpected laugh. The surge of energy that felt like hope returning, when it was really something else entirely. A gift. A goodbye wrapped in light.

In this episode, you'll hear about Adel's final rally, the days when her spirit flared bright one last time. We talked about everything and nothing. She wanted to protect us all from the sadness she knew was coming. And in those final hours, we didn't fill the room with fear. We filled it with love. 

This is the hardest episode of the 20-part true love story: My Soulmate Named Adel, and the one I'm most grateful I lived.

Subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.
https://open.spotify.com/show/6nKm4EerZk1sfsCR6yUMZU
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reframing-life/id1876090703

Some truths arrive without sound. You don't hear them coming, you just look around one day and realize everything you thought you knew has quietly rearranged itself while you were busy surviving. In the hospital, Adel and I found a rhythm we never wanted but desperately needed. The beeping machines. The thin blankets. The way she'd look at me without saying anything, and somehow, I understood everything.

In this episode, you'll hear what that hospital room taught us about love, not the loud, declarative kind, but the love that sits beside you in silence and refuses to leave. The radiation appointments. The new routine we built together inside those walls. The moment she called out for me to stroke her hair. And the quiet, unspoken truth settling over both of us, even as we refused to name it. 

Part of the 20-part true love story: My Soulmate Named Adel.

Subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.
https://open.spotify.com/show/6nKm4EerZk1sfsCR6yUMZU
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reframing-life/id1876090703

Some rooms change you the moment you walk into them. You don't know what's happened yet, but you can feel it. The air is different. The person you love is sitting there, and before a single word is spoken, something in you already knows. That afternoon, I walked into our office carrying takeout for dinner. I walked out carrying a new reality.

In this episode, you'll hear about the call that ended the illusion we'd been holding, eight tumours. Then ten more in her brain. The DNR Adel tried to sign but couldn't. A seizure beside the Christmas tree, and the moment I yelled "Don't leave me now", and she heard me. This is the episode where everything changed. Part of the 20-part true love story: My Soulmate Named Adel.

Subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.
https://open.spotify.com/show/6nKm4EerZk1sfsCR6yUMZU
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reframing-life/id1876090703

There's a strange grace that comes when the unthinkable begins to feel like everyday life. The fear is still there, but moving alongside it is something that looks a lot like hope. In the months after Adel's diagnosis, we didn't slow down. We moved forward. Not despite what was happening, but through it, together.

In this episode, you'll hear about the moments that carried us: a Halloween surgery where the OR team arrived in costumes, Adel quietly taking control the morning her hair began to fall, a week in Los Cabos where strangers saw nothing but a woman with beautiful salt-and-pepper hair, and the day she posted four words on Facebook: one year cancer free. Part of the 20-part true love story: My Soulmate Named Adel.

Subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode.
https://open.spotify.com/show/6nKm4EerZk1sfsCR6yUMZU
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reframing-life/id1876090703

There are moments that divide a relationship into before and after. Ours arrived quietly, not as a dramatic turning point, but as a phone call I somehow already understood before a single word was spoken. I couldn't get to Adel fast enough. And in those three minutes, love stopped being abstract. It became the only thing that mattered. What followed wasn't fear; it was quiet, focused, determined courage. 

And it changed everything.

Most people don't ask it out loud, but I hear it. 

Why would you share something this personal? 

The honest answer has two parts. 

The first is a promise I made to Adel: that what we had wouldn't fade into memory, but would live on for anyone still trying to build something real. 

The second is something I've learned to be true again and again: that the deepest connections, the truest joy, come from choosing to stay open. Even when it costs you. This is why I'm telling these stories. Not to teach. Not to preach. To show what's possible when you choose to stay open, even when it's hard.