The Luminist

The achievement of all achievements, and yet…

"He was the role model.”

“He's the standard where we all talked about what it is to be a Pittsburgh Steeler. Not only that, he's the standard of what it is to be a human being.”

“The stuff that he did around here in the community, not only just around here, but just everywhere, he tried to give back as much as he can." 

- Najee Harris, Pittsburgh Steelers running back, on the life of Franco Harris.

Yes, this is a newsletter about loss, not sports, but stick with me here!

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

The American football community was abuzz during the Christmas holiday about the untimely death of a great man. Franco Harris was a Pittsburgh Steeler known for an illustrious career on the field… but an even greater impact off it. 

Harris’s mythology includes the most famous football play of all time. Coined the “Immaculate Reception”, his mind-boggling deflected catch could only be called a miracle.

It not only changed the outcome of the game (winning touchdown in the last 22 seconds!) but kicked off a Steelers' dynasty in which they earned four Super Bowl trophies in six years. 

(You can read more about Franco Harris from fellow Substacker Jay Mariotti here.)

The 50th anniversary celebration of the Immaculate Reception was televised on Christmas Eve. Harris was meant to be standing proudly on stage and reliving his most famous football moment. But when he unexpectedly died just two days before, the event pivoted from celebrating his superhuman play to celebrating the mortal man… 

Who turns out to have outshined his celebrated catch with all the ways he:

* treated his teammates and fans alike with genuine kindness.

* gave back to the city and community of Pittsburgh.

* “did it with such grace and class and patience and time for people,” (according to Mike Tomlin, the Steelers’s current head coach).

The Immaculate Reception — the breath-taking achievement that made Harris famous — took a backseat to the everyday moments when he graciously carried, bestowed, and put aside his fame for the greater good.

When our achievements fall by the wayside…

As all the praise for Franco flooded in, I was reminded of the outpouring of letters, emails, and cards I received after Mike died, many of which shared their version of how amazing he was. Of course I knew his amazing-ness as a husband, father, friend, and family member. But there were other parts of his life that were opaque to me… Especially related to his work, for which he flew around the country and slept in hotels most days of the week. 

One of the most memorable notes I received was from Shabana, Mike’s coworker. She shared:

"Although I haven't worked with [Mike] for the last year or so, every time I saw him in the office he always made time to talk about my career and my professional development. He was a huge supporter and an informal mentor. 

“Over the past week, I have been surprised to learn that I'm not alone in this sentiment — that Mike was a coach to many of us. Despite all that he had going on, he made time for so many people. His loss is huge, but I am so happy and consider myself lucky that I got a chance to know him."

Here’s what Shabana did NOT say (even though these were all true):

* “I was in awe of how he closed that $20M deal.”

* “He made the most beautiful PowerPoints.”

* “He could work a spreadsheet like no one I ever saw.”

When we lose people we care about, their disappearance creates a space in their shape… a space that helps us realize their true impact.

It’s like the outer trappings of the person fall away — the parts of them that were impressive, enviable even, but superficial — similar to the layers of a Russian nesting doll.

We forget their achievements and accomplishments because they pale in comparison to their core, their humanity, their heart — the part of them that we will never stop missing.

The part that made the world a better place.

Even when those achievements were miracles as great as the Immaculate Reception. Or closing $20M deals.

The Eulogy Challenge.

In our rituals around death, both obituaries and eulogies have their place. 

Obituaries are necessarily short. They are bite-sized biographies, life highlights — the “Immaculate Reception” version of our lives.

Eulogies serve an entirely different purpose. Rather than what we did, they are about how we lived. 

They are about the inner-most nesting doll.

Here is where the Eulogy Challenge comes in.

(Yep, I am asking for another exercise. At The Luminist we’re about action… And results!)

If your best friend, your spouse, your children, your parents were preparing your eulogy, what would you want them to say? 

Here’s a photo of my list:

Some of these I have achieved. Some I’m actively making progress on.

Some are purely aspirational.

None involve specific career milestones or bucket-list items.

Rather, they focus on:

* my success at making people feel seen, heard, and appreciated — just like Mike.

* using my presence to inspire and support my children, my family, my friends, even my colleagues, in big and small ways.

* the impact of The Luminist on the lives of strangers around the world through conversations about grief, loss, and living more vibrant lives.   

Your turn.

Find a quiet five minutes today. (Even three will do!) Make your list. Keep it somewhere you can reflect on it — cross items off, add items. Talk to those you love most about it. 

This would be an easy exercise to blow off. You could just read this post (which I deeply appreciate!) and skip this part. I sure hope you don’t.

Don’t let complacency convince you procrastination is okay.

Also don’t let fear chase you away.

Writing our ideas clarifies our thinking, starts conversations, and changes our actions. You could have this all in minutes of fat-finger typing on your iPhone or pencil scratching on the back of a receipt!

As a business woman, I can tell you that’s an ROI I wouldn’t pass up.

The smallest actions with the biggest impacts.

For Franco Harris, it was genuine interest and unconditional support that cost him very little, if anything, while meaning so much to the players and fans around him.

Players and fans who then looked up to him, emulated him, passed along his generosity until the culture of the entire Steelers Nation became more cohesive, more supportive, more successful.

That’s legacy.

An impact on things beyond the material realm, on communities and connections and feelings of fulfillment.

This is your final nudge to brainstorm your eulogy. Come up with two or three points, ideas, inklings.

Then — for the over-achievers on the subscriber list — pick an item from your eulogy. One you have not accomplished… yet.

Write a few sentences on how you might get there. Small changes you can make that will ripple far and wide.

Imagine yourself making an impact greater than you could with any superficial success… because it does not end with you.

You are only the beginning.

To your legacy,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

“People overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” - Bill Gates (or someone else smart).

As we come into the new year (holy cow, here we are!), a lot of us are thinking about what we want to change. What we are striving for, working towards, transforming into.

So much effort. It makes me twitchy just thinking about it.

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

The popular narrative is that good things require hard work. Keeping your eye on the prize. Putting one foot in front of the other. Digging deep and persisting. In many situations, I think that’s a good strategy… but not in all aspects of life.

First of all, life is too mysterious for there to be only one way to do anything.

Second of all, since my husband passed, I’ve learned that sometimes there isn’t enough willpower in the world to keep trying…

But even without effort, there is change. Even without planning, there is growth. Even good growth. Even the type of growth we were barely allowing ourselves to hope for.

So today, I want to offer a personal story that illustrates another approach to transformation, to change, to healing. 

One that mimics gravity with its inevitability... especially once it picks up momentum.

That was then.

My late husband Mike was a doctor-interviewing dad. He came to all pediatrician appointments — never missing a single one — with a notepad full of questions. He’d maybe let the physician get through the first five minutes of the exam before completely taking over.

We had to swap out pediatricians more than once because not all doctors like to be questioned on medicine dosages, impact to future height, potential side effects, clinical trials, and more…

Eventually trial and error — plus a measure of serendipity — brought us to our beloved pediatrician, Dr. A. Every year, the four of us would jam into the tiny exam room, making jokes and laughing while Dr. A gently questioned and examined the kids. 

Another ritual that went utterly unnoticed until it disappeared.

Two months after Mike died, we headed to our yearly appointment. Three of us instead of four.

A nurse did the usual weighing and measuring of the kids, a rudimentary eye exam, and a hearing test with the 1950’s-style clunky headphones sticking off their small heads. Raise the arm when you hear the beep!

Then she ushered us into the tiny exam room.

Dr. A arrived.

“Hello Deagles! How are you all, so nice to see you!” He said with his trademark warmth and enthusiasm.

Taking in the room, his brow furrowed.

“Where’s dad?” he asked.

We had all been in our own heads, for the millionth time discovering and processing a hole in our lives where Mike had always been. Where he should still be. 

I began, “Well, Dr. A, we have some very sad news. Mike died in November of a heart attack.”

Dr. A’s eyes widened. He took the three of us in with our sad-sack faces and slumped shoulders.

“I am so, so sorry. You must miss him so much. How are you kids doing?” He said.

The kids responded with their rote “ok”. Dr. A gave their knees a squeeze and gave me a compassionate half-smile.

We proceeded with our exam. Dr. A worked his magic and even made us laugh a little.

“Mom,” he said to me, “I would like you to take Connor and Kendall to the pediatric cardiologist to do a sonogram on their hearts to make sure they are structurally sound. I don’t anticipate any problems but let’s do this out of an abundance of caution.”

He wrote me a referral, I made the appointment, and six weeks later we were having another new experience — a cardiologist visit for a 12- and 14-year old.

This exam room was much bigger, yet we clumped together like barnacles on a sea wall, the crinkly white hygiene paper on the exam table announcing our smallest fidgets to the entire room. We talked about nothing as we waited for the door to open.

In walked a raven-haired doctor, her Irish lilt gently filling the room. 

“So what brings the three of you here?” she said brightly.

I opened my mouth.

No sound came out. 

Sometimes feelings build slowly over minutes or hours or days. Sometimes they rush in all at once like a pipe broke and suddenly you’re overflowing.

A combined sense of dread and sadness bloomed in my chest, spreading quickly to my throat. I had experienced a thousand combinations of emotions since Mike died but this one was new. 

Past loss that was still taking up the majority of the space in my heart and mind, now combined with the potential of future loss looming on the horizon. 

What if something was wrong with one of the kids’ hearts? What if these canon-balling, somersaulting, scooter-riding beings were going to be restricted by whatever we might find? How could they take another blow and survive? 

I was completely undone in that moment. 

The kids sensed my pause was getting a little too long. 

Kendall broke the silence. “Mom, do you want me to tell her why we are here?”

I nodded stiffly.

“My dad died of a heart attack four months ago. Our doctor wants you to check out our hearts to make sure there is nothing wrong with them.” She said bluntly. Kendall was not in the business of shielding anyone’s feelings from her loss. This was a grown-up, she should be able to hack it. 

The sweet Irish doctor nodded.

“Ok, then that is what we shall do.” She calmly said. “And I am so very sorry for your loss.”

The kids were set up in the exam room, and the same sonogram technology the obstetrician used when they were tiny beings in my belly was now deployed to look into their hearts. Cold, goopy gel followed by the sono wand was rubbed all over their chests and up under their ribs. It was uncomfortable and lengthy.

Contrary to my catastrophizing, all hearts were deemed healthy and fine. We went on our way having dodged another horrific blow, but still feeling as if salt had been rubbed in our very raw wounds.

What else could we do?

This is now.

Five years later, Kendall and I are back at the pediatric cardiologist. Another precautionary measure — Dr. A orders an EKG for any patient who had COVID and Kendall came down the virus earlier in the year. 

We chitchat in the waiting room, watching moms and dads with tiny babies and wriggling toddlers waiting all around us. At 16, Kendall looks like an Amazon in the land of the munchkins next to the other children.

Soon we are shown to an exam room. The nurse applies tiny, sticky circles on Kendall’s chest, attaches them to long wires, and takes the x-ray.

We wait in the exam room for the results, talking about her party plans that night, gossiping about what her friends are up to. There are medical diagrams papering the walls. Cross-sections of skeletons, mazes of blue and red veins, and hearts. Massive drawings of pulsing hearts. All around us. 

“So tell me again what happened to daddy’s heart?” Kendall asks.

I stand up and pick one of the diagrams, tracing the left anterior descending (LAD) artery with my index finger. The one that was blocked. The one that caused his death. 

“This is the ‘widow maker’ artery.” I say. “This is where a piece of plaque blocked it and why they could not restart his heart.”

She comes up next to me and, shoulder to shoulder, our long blonde hair falling forward like golden veils around our faces, we lean in and look at the bright, detailed diagram, tracing the LAD artery with our eyes. Discussing matter-of-factly the physiological reasons Mike — my husband, her father — is no longer here. 

The failure of a particular human heart to keep on beating...

We hear the door handle turn as the nurse re-enters the room.

"Everything looks great, here's your print-out." she says.

Our own hearts light, we leave the office and continue on with our uneventful day.

In conclusion.

The smallest of vignettes — a few seconds in a doctor’s office — show the transformation we have undergone. A transformation we could not track on a timeline with milestones and achievements.

No one would compare this journey with that of a persevering underdog becoming a champion — our progress was rarely either apparent or intentional.

Nor would they compare it the phoenix rising from the ashes in an awe-inspiring instant. It took years. And from the outside likely didn’t seem miraculous.

But maybe we’re just numb to certain miracles because they surround us.

Maybe even live inside of us?

With all our conscious strength tied up in just getting through the day, any forward progress was thanks to an unconscious impetus.

Like how a dormant seed survives the winter and blossoms in the spring. 

Luckily we don’t have to understand how it works… It’s going to work its magic anyway.

So, in addition to setting resolutions today, what if you take a moment to reflect? Look back and see how far you’ve come. In subtle ways, internal ways, foundational ways that have quietly changed everything…

To your transformation,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

“I don’t need your support.”

My friend Nathan’s dad was in a terrible accident. He’s going to make it (hallelujah) but it scared the heck out of his family and will require months if not years of healing.

Nathan has handled the shock by springing into action: 

* He’s gotten his father the best care.

* He’s supporting his mother as she works through her fear, anxiety, and worry.

* He’s basically taking care of the entire family physically and emotionally. 

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

When he told me the story, my heart understandably broke for him. 

It was clear that Nathan was meeting this excruciating moment with incredible strength… while also likely nursing some shock and grief quietly on his own. And I wanted to let him know that he wasn’t alone, that he had my support and my consolation, that he could lean on me if need be.

Because grieving and healing isn’t something we are meant to do on our own.

“I’m so sorry, Nate! My heart goes out to you. This is so terrible!” I began.

He quickly jumped in, “Well, really it is my dad and mom who have it the worst…”

I cut in.

“Hey Nate, can we pause this conversation for a second?”

He nodded so I continued. (Nate and I know each other well so he trusts my well-intentioned but abrupt transitions!)

“First of all, you are suffering too. This is your father. This is scary.”

He looked down at his hands; an expression of sorrow flashed across his face then disappeared as just quickly.

I reached my hands out to him across the table.

“Second, I don’t know your dad, but I know you. So you are the person I am trying to comfort, trying to give my energy to, trying to fortify with my caring and concern.

“When you cannot accept my consolation, you are saying my love for you is not necessary. But I know it is.”

Nathan sighed and let his shoulders relax… Like they had put down part, not all, but part of their load. 

Like he didn’t have to carry it all on his own. 

Nathan knows the story of my husband’s death. So he knew this wasn't just lip service.

“I know from experience (ahem) that my energy, my prayers, my concern will make a tangible impact on you. 

“Please don’t deflect it. Please receive it, absorb it, let it strengthen you. Accept the unexplainable — that it will make a difference.”

Nathan paused, and finally slowly smiled. 

The strange math of giving & receiving.

I saw Nathan a few weeks later.

His dad is slowly healing (hallelujah x2!) but there is still a lot of family-wide stress as the recovery process plays out, as well as uncertainty about what their collective future will look like.

(Dealing with not knowing is a huge deal we will look at in a future post because, spoiler alert, almost all of life is not knowing.) 

But in the short-term, Nathan has flexed his receiving muscles to his whole family’s benefit. He isn’t trying to do it all on his own. He is not only accepting support, he is asking for it!

As a result, Nathan gets to sleep, spend quality time with his wife and mom, and actually go outside (running from building to car to building does not count).

Simultaneously, Nathan’s other family members get to feel helpful, impactful, powerful… Rather than lost in grief and uncertainty without being able to do a single thing about it.

Because receiving and giving, on an energetic level, are the same thing.

When we receive, we also give something to the giver — the intangible but irreplaceable feeling of making a difference. Of not just being a helpless bystander. Of contributing to life-changing, even life-saving work.

1 + 1 = 11.

* Everyone leaves with more than they had before.

* Everyone feels more connected than they did before.

* Everyone is fulfilling their own needs more than they were before (example: the burnt-out get to sleep and the antsy get to help.)

This is the new math we have to use when doing human calculations. Here, addition doesn’t exist.

It’s replaced by exponential expansion of caring, of connection… of love.

In Nathan’s case, now the whole family is working together to cover shifts at the rehab center with his dad, cook meals for his mom, and just generally “show up” — whether that’s with a check-in call, an emotional-support bag of Flaming Spice Doritos, or a Costco-sized crate of Puff’s Extra Soft Tissues.

They have never felt more like a family.

They have never felt so connected to each other, so in-tune with each other’s needs, so cared for themselves.

Our collective false beliefs about the downsides of receiving.

So why don’t you like to receive?

Are you judging your suffering to be so minor compared to the person “really” suffering — Nathan vs. his dad — that accepting support feels wrong? 

Do you falsely believe there is a hierarchy to suffering, some giant invisible pyramid where only those at the tippy top deserve support? 

Have you trained your brain to not go to dark places, fearing your emotions will spill over? So when someone offers you support, it feels like a crowbar trying to pry open the tightly-sealed chamber where you’ve stuffed all your roiling emotions… and you want nothing to do with it?

Or are you worried that receiving help will make you weak? That you’ll forget how to stand on your own two feet, that you’ll melt into a pile of mush and never find your way back to being a powerful, independent, productive human being ever again?

None of these reasons are inherently bad. 

They just are not helping you in the way you think. 

In conclusion.

Nathan shared one more vignette of giving and receiving that has stayed in my mind for weeks.

On a visit to the hospital, he was surprised to come in and see his mom feeding his dad. Nathan’s dad was capable of feeding himself — his injuries did not prevent him from doing so — and yet his mom was spooning small, careful bites into his mouth.

Nathan realized that this was his dad’s way of offering her solace. Giving his wife a tangible, action-oriented way of sharing her love, of helping him… and in the process lessening her suffering.

Nathan didn’t offer what his dad was feeling in that moment… But we can put ourselves in his hospital bed and know how we’d feel. Loved and cared for of course. But also maybe galvanized.

Maybe even more devoted to our healing.

Maybe re-dedicating ourselves to full recovery because — no matter how hard it will be — it will be worth it.

When we allow ourselves to receive, we are not just supported in tangible ways, we are also ignited in emotional ways.

We realize our healing, surviving, thriving is bigger than us. It’s for the ones we love.

So we overcome our hardships — again and again, big and small, in a thousand ways throughout our lives — to return the favor of love. To give back into this magic web of human connection and support and vulnerability that we are lucky enough to live within. Giving and receiving, over and over and over again.

Thank you, Nate, for sharing this incredible example with us all.

Dear reader, in the next week, how will you feed others? How will you let yourself be fed? 

Challenge yourself to not return a single gift of support, of solace, even a compliment unopened.

Let the nodes of network and communal support begin to form, enriching our world with symbiotic love and care… starting around you.

In connection,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

“Death, along with all its anger, pain and loss, opens a window of possibility for the living. It removes the veil that the “ordinary” gently draped over our eyes. Renewed sight is the hero’s last loving gift to those left behind.” - Bruce Springsteen in his memoir Born to Run.

Let me tell you dear reader, this statement could not be more true.

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

When I finally emerged from the acute phase of grief after my husband died, I was blown away with how the smallest details had become illuminated.

Sensations that I had blown by for decades — on my way to do very important things no doubt — now grabbed and held my attention, forcing me to do a double-take.

* How could that cardinal possibly be so red against the deep green outline of the maple leaves?

* How can this fleece blanket (which has lived on my couch for two years) suddenly feel so soft against the soles of my feet? 

* How have I hummed along to this song for decades, but now it moves me to tears every time I hear it?

* How does the ceiling at the airport I’ve walked through countless times now seems so beautiful with its arched domes and yellow beams?

Suddenly my reality consisted of tiny and immeasurable units of beauty that were freckled across every day like sprinkles on a buttercream-topped cupcake.

These previously unremarkable details added up to a glorious, delicious, technicolor whole that I was amazed to call my life.

And still am today.

(Ah, there it is again… Another reminder of the paradox that The Luminist is built upon: reflecting on the mysteries of grief and loss help us better embrace the mysteries of living and fulfillment.) 

But I didn’t write this post to tell you how everything is soooo great since Mike died. 

I wrote it to bring back lessons from the other side. 

To share that this way of interacting with, absorbing, being cracked open by the “ordinary” is right here. Right in front of us. As long as we know where (and how) to look.

The veil is escapable. And the magic on the other side is everywhere.

I didn’t come up with the title of this post on my own. I gladly stole it from author Don DeLillo, who used the phrase while describing his book White Noise to The New York Times. 

“I tried to find a kind of radiance in dailiness,” DeLillo said.

“This extraordinary wonder of things is somehow related to the extraordinary dread.”

The radiance…

In dailiness. 

Not the radiance in a:

* Once-a-year vacation

* One-time special event

* Career-defining success

* Life-time achievement

The radiance in “holy smokes, have you ever noticed how downright delightful that thing that we see/hear/touch/eat/experience everyday is??”

The taste of a raspberry exploding in your mouth. The tinkling belly-laughter of a small child playing peek-a-boo with her father. The feeling of acceptance and intimacy and belonging as you gab comfortably with your good friend.

These aren’t unique moments! They are common denominators in many, if not all, of our lives!

And yet we blow through them without absorbing the nourishment they have to offer… 

So what does it take for us to slow down enough to appreciate them?

(Preferably besides experiencing a devastating loss…)

Removing the veil, the easier way.

So my advice from the other side?

While we search for fulfillment and/or happiness in all the modern places — money, prestige, beauty, success, pick your poison — the entrance to the path is hiding in plain sight. Daily sight.

In fact, “the path” probably doesn’t even look like a path.

It’s covered in wildflowers and seemingly blocked by brush and branches. It doesn’t look like it will take you anywhere. But it will, just not in the way you are used to…

Ok, enough waxing poetic for my logical thinkers!

Here’s the step-by-step procedure:

When something daily, something regular, something seemingly mundane catches your eye (or ear, or nose, or fingertip!) with a tiny burst of sensation, linger. 

Slow down. 

Stay with those first sprouts of curiosity.

Then feel the wonder blossoming inside. 

Don’t turn away. 

Don’t judge it as a waste of time, a distraction from moving on to more “productive” things. 

Let the thrill of noticing something “new” (even if it is old!) envelope you, body and mind.

In other words… Immerse yourself in the noticing.

Maybe we should rename the veil of the ordinary the veil of busyness.

Because really that is what is getting in our way.

The idea that we don’t have enough time — aka, it’s not important enough — to slow down.

But we have enough time! (Netflix and social media know it.)

We just don’t have permission… from ourselves.

So we have to master the mental gymnastics to pole vault over our entrenched busyness mindsets and allow ourselves to take a beat.

To literally smell the roses!

To follow the gently-used path into our aliveness — our inherent and endless wonderment at just being alive, all together, on this planet.

Grief, shock, and loss take a sneaky backdoor into giving us this permission…

Post-loss, the present moment is the only place to find relief from the pain of the past and the fear of the future (explaining the link between wonder and dread in DeLillo’s quote above.) 

Desperation drives us into the small, sensational details… but we’ll just call it “permission”. 

But even without being shattered by what just happened and terrified of what comes next, we can still prioritize the present.

We can still learn to give ourselves permission…

To put down the mantle of what needs to be done — just for a few moments — and breathe deeply into what is.

I’m not saying training our minds to momentarily step out of “doing” to embrace “noticing” is easy. Especially when it's culturally ingrained to believe that “doing” makes us good, contributing, productive members of society.

I’m saying we can do both.

We can recognize that hard work, service, problem solving, providing is incredibly fulfilling. And even more fulfilling when we can combine it with access to the magic of being present in and conscious of the here and now.

When we are not a slave to the grind but not adrift in the ocean of sensation either. 

When we straddle both worlds, somehow marrying them together. 

When we become an acolyte of the small detail, a worshiper of the beauty that exists all around us… and we let it fuel us into purposeful, meaningful, fulfilling action.

This is “real” life. 

If you don’t believe me, I dare you to take the first step onto the hidden path of “noticing”.

More magic will follow. I promise. Because I live it.

(And I didn’t believe it before either.)

As I finish this post, here is my “radiant dailiness” of the morning breaking from my writing seat. 

Find yours today.

Take a mere moment to notice the awe-inspiring embedded in the “ordinary”.

And if you are truly too busy… remember that, whether you’re paying attention or not, you are surrounded by magic.

With awareness, 

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

In the last podcast, we talked about mustering our courage, getting out of our own way, and finding the right words to console better. That podcast was about external action. Super useful and undoubtedly important, but only one side of the story.

This week we are diving into the internal experience of someone grieving deeply. Which, as much as we hope it were not so, will be all of us sooner or later… If we aren’t there already.

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

I promise I am not purposefully torturing us here, this exploration will be worth it!

By developing insights into the grieving mind, we are supercharging our empathy — both for others and ourselves.

We are learning to connect in a way that welcomes the whole self, not just the happy, shiny bits.

And we are gaining self-compassion for when it’s our turn to grieve a loss — big or small. 

In going into this no-man’s land of grief, we are also taking a step toward acknowledging loss as part of the human experience…

Something we are made to move through — chaotically, miserably, incrementally, but without judgment.

Just as nature responds to forest-clearing wildfires with new-sapling growth, our minds, bodies, and hearts are made to regenerate and renew after devastation.

At our own perfect pace. 

Finally, by taking a curious look into the shadows of grief, we are reminded of our innate strength.

Our innate hope. Our innate ability to connect despite the darkness and find our way back into the light together. 

So stick with me for a 15-minute Saturday morning read and I promise we’ll come out the other side feeling enlightened and empowered!

So let’s dive into the griever’s mind…

Darkness… and cracks of light.

In the earliest days, here is what a griever’s mind looks like: ink black.

But over time, light spaces begin to emerge within the darkness of a griever’s mind. 

If you’re currently grieving, you just keep on grieving. Let the consolers get this one.

Consolers, we get to help grow the light.

Not in a “let’s just focus on the light” kind of way, nor in a “let’s distract you from the darkness” kind of way. Rather, we are walking alongside the slow, heavy steps of our mourning companion, providing solace and bearing witness. 

When I was lost in the opaque haze of grief, my friends and family grew my light in different ways:

Luanne shed tears with me, letting me be sad without judgment, and bringing enough tissues for both of us.

Julie sent me silly cards that made me smile however briefly amidst the sorrow.

Bill leaned in and listened as I fretted on repeat about how the kids would grow up without a dad. 

Some of these consolations may seem at odds with each other, working in opposite directions. But they did not. These different ways shared an undercurrent.

Each person met my scattershot feelings with fervent acceptance, wide-open empathy, and “I’ve got you.”

Each made me feel safe to just be. While also modeling the sane person I hoped to transform back into some day.  

This is what good consolers do in the midst of emotions they may not even understand. They listen. They respond. They abide.

Really, this is what good human beings do.

They understand every season must run its course, even during the coldest, darkest days. They don’t try to hurry it along. Rather they bundle up, make themselves comfortable, and spend time in candlelit rooms with the ones they love most, listening to smooth jazz.

They trust the subtle ways of transformation and evolution.

Which will come in handy when facing the next element of the grief process…

More emotions than we knew existed.

We are a culture of frameworks. We love to apply rules of thumb, lists, guideposts, roadmaps to our problems. If someone else has done it, maybe we can just follow their route? 

So of course we try to jam something as mysterious and inexplicable as grief into a framework. 

This explains the popularization of the Stages of Grief model put forth by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969, which proposed we move through grief linearly, experiencing these emotions one at a time:

* Denial

* Anger

* Bargaining

* Depression

* Acceptance 

But there is a rub. Dr. Kubler-Ross derived these stages from her work with terminally ill patients.

Not from those left behind when these patients died. 

For decades now we have been assigning a framework to an audience that it was never intended for…

And accidentally piling on two more burdens in addition to their grief:

“I must be doing grief wrong” followed closely by “no one can understand what I’m going through, I’m so alone” when they don’t see their personal experience reflected in these classic stages.

We think we are offering a supportive scaffolding but presenting it to the wrong set of people — giving them false hope of a smooth process when it is anything but! And then leaving the griever feeling even more alone and lost and confused…

So let’s get this straight. Here is the actual, official timeline of grief: 

SEE IMAGE AT https://theluminist.substack.com/p/5-demystifying-the-grievers-mind

I was given this visual four months after my husband died. It reflected my chaotic experience exactly. Upon seeing it, I felt normal… or as normal as someone going through an upending of their world can feel.

“If someone made a picture like this, then others must experience grief this way,” I thought to myself. “I’m not alone!”

My journey — because I, like every other griever who has ever existed, am a unique individual with unique context and unique circumstance — did not stay neatly within the bounds of the stages of grief.

Not only did my grieving process refuse to fit into a linear timeline, it included fifty more emotions than the official five. Anguish. Despair. Hopelessness. Loneliness. Fear. Sadness. Longing. 

In other words, don’t expect some neat and tidy unfolding of grief.

Don’t have your clipboard with the stages of grief handy, so you can check off each box as you or your loved one moves from denial to acceptance. 

Don’t tell the griever (whether it's you or someone else) how they should be feeling, or silently wait and wonder why they (you) are not in the next stage yet.

Better yet, drop the idea of “stages” completely! For everyone. Present company included.

Grief is not linear. (Just like love is not linear. Growing up is not linear. Pushing through limits is not linear. Accepting and surrendering is not linear.)

Grief is an individual experience and each griever's emotions will be different… At a different volume and intensity, showing up unbidden in the early days and continuously, sporadically resurfacing at times we cannot predict. 

It is messy and disordered. It is the human experience. We should expect nothing less.

So why do we keep trying to fit it — fit ourselves? — into boxes?

Unless of course that box is defined by not having boundaries…

Oscillation.

In a more modern (and more fluid) grief theory from the late 1990’s, Margaret Steobe and Henk Schut proposed a very different understanding of the grief process. Their Dual Process Model states that rather than steadily working our way through stages, we oscillate. 

We pivot back and forth between dealing with the loss of the human and the loss of the life we were living with that human. 

We have lost more than a person. We have lost an entire way of being. 

According to the researchers, we have a “loss-orientation” when grieving our loved one, and a “restoration-orientation” when taking the steps to put our blown-up lives back together. 

So what’s the takeaway for us as grievers, consolers, students of the human condition? 

Sometimes grievers face their loss head on, and sometimes they need a break… which is actually the crucial work of evolving into their new life in disguise.

In the first year after Mike died — and frankly in all the years that have followed — when I could not bear my wide-ranging emotions and anxiety any longer, I would turn on the TV and watch Star Wars movies.

One after another.

For hours. 

Six years later, if the kids see me watching Star Wars, they gently ask, “You ok, mom?”

I smile and say I am just looking for a break. They smile back, reassured, understanding completely.

And after I have spent some time “checked out” — resting my brain, resting my soul — I return more anchored to the present moment, rather than lost in my pain of the past or fear of the future. 

It wasn’t just a break as in a rest… It was a pattern interrupt. It broke the cycle of incessant thoughts, giving me a chance to reset and restart.

Each “break” is like a tiny winter during which the processes of life seem to slow down, even stop… From the outside, we may worry that the griever is stuck, not moving forward, numbing out, lost. But inevitably winter is followed by spring. 

Because winter brings spring. 

So let there be winter, many winters, as many winters as you need.

Which brings us to final mysterious process of the grieving mind (that could fit into this post)…

Hope.

Hope?

When I laid out what The Luminist is about in its inaugural post, I promised to not engage in toxic positivity. So how could I be discussing hope and the grieving mind in the same space without bypassing something?

I am not going to pretend that things aren’t crushingly hard in the first days, weeks, and months after loss. In fact, I call this time the “acute phase” because you are actually in shock. 

Just as if you had a terrible accident damaging your tissues and muscles and bones, you have survived a terrible blow to your mind — and to your heart. While there are no physical signs of distress (besides the anguish written all over your face), you are still experiencing shock. 

And yet… maybe hope and despair aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe they are even related.

Brené Brown in Atlas of the Heart says this about hope:

“Hope is not what most of us think it is. It’s not a warm, fuzzy emotion that fills us with a sense of possibility. 

“Hope is a way of thinking — a cognitive process. 

“Hope is a function of struggle — we develop hope not during the easy or comfortable times, but through adversity and discomfort.

“Hope is learned.”

As we covered above, part of grief is treading water in an uncontrollable, unpredictable sea of emotions.

Perhaps the seed of hope is planted while the mind is awash in all those other emotions.

Perhaps this allows the new bud to grow without the full weight of the rational mind bearing down on it.

Or perhaps we simply need hope. And so it finds a way.

I was desperate in the early days for some indication of how long I would feel utterly horrible. I just couldn’t live this way forever. It was impossible.

And so, it had to end.

Which, in a very backward way, shows I had the seed of hope.

Whether I willed it into existence or was able to predict the future, I somehow knew the acute pain would fade. 

On the darkest days, I fixed my eyes on that horizon, returning over and over again to the knowing that it was only a matter of time. Yes, an ETA would have been nice, but sadly that’s not part of the “mystery of life and death” handbook. 

So if anyone shares with you that they wonder how long it will feel like this, that is actually a sign they know it will get better. 

Maybe read the moment to decide if it’s the right time to point that out to them… But at least you’ll know.

It’s hope. 

Conclusion.

If we have even a slim understanding of what is roiling under the surface of a griever’s mind, we can meet them where they are with love.

(Or, if we are the one grieving, meet ourselves with love.)

We cannot “walk a mile in their shoes” because we have never been there, with their specific grief, with their specific circumstance. Even those of us who have lost cannot. 

But what we can do is believe. 

Not fix, not recommend, not judge. 

Just believe. Believe them when they tell us what they are going through, believe them when they need to disappear into sci-fi movies, believe them when one day they say they’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, and the next day they say it’s gone. 

The first part of believe is be. If we learn nothing else about grieving — or consoling or human-ing — if nothing else feels natural to do, just fall back on be. 

Just be with your people in their time of need. 

Even that is enough.

And when we are the ones that are struggling… just be with ourselves.

Trust that spring is coming. Trust the seed will sprout. Trust the process. And just be.

With love,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

Consolation feels like an old-school, outdated word. Like a word your grandma uses. 

We don’t toss this word around in everyday vernacular. And when we do happen to hear it, we tend to think of a consolation prize (what you get for not winning), rather than the act — the action — of consoling. 

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Empathy, sympathy, compassion… these words easily flow through our lips when we describe connecting with and caring for each other. They’re good words, to be sure.

But these are feeling words, centering our own internal experience. 

Consolation — what you actively do for another; when you actually reach out, through your empathy, sympathy, compassion, to touch the grieving soul — is nowhere to be found.

Maybe that’s why we are so unskilled at it.

I think we are often scared to console, fearing we might make the pain worse… My friends, there is very little you can do to make it worse.

The mind of a grieving person is ink black. When your intent is to console, you won’t accidentally add any darkness. But you can purposefully add light.

Step 1 of consoling: Breathing through “the freeze.”

When those we care about lose someone, we feel for them and hate to see them in pain.

(There is actually a biological thing going on here, but we’ll address that in a future post.)

We think to ourselves, “Oh please, can’t we do something? Can’t we make it better? Couldn’t we have stopped it in the first place?”

So why do so many of us freeze up and do nothing? 

I would argue it's because — in our general squeamishness around death — we have gotten lost in our own fear, slipped into auto-pilot, and distanced ourselves from the whole “situation”…

Instead of staying focused on the people who really need solace. 

(To be fair, it’s hard to stay present and purposeful in the face of grief without either a strategy or practice. Which is why we’re here!)

So the first step in consoling better is ensuring you are putting the loved one who has lost at the center of the experience.

In the book Option B by Cheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, Adam uses a visual to show Cheryl how this idea works after her husband Dave dies unexpectedly of a heart attack. 

Those most impacted — and most in need of consolation — belong at the center. Each concentric circle holds other humans, radiating outward to reflect how much their life is impacted by the loved one’s death.

I really appreciate this idea because it clarifies who needs the lion’s share of our support. It gets us focused.

And this focus is the anti-venom for what tends to come next when we encounter grief…

Our mind’s slide down the slippery slope.

The thought of death bleeds through our consciousness and morphs into a personal experience — it shifts from being centered on the other person to something that is conjuring up our own fears. 

Next thing we know, our minds begin to circle the wagons and care for the other person goes out the window as our worst fears take up all our mental space, convincing us we need to protect ourselves. 

It’s normal. It’s natural. And here’s what you do about it.

When you feel the poisonous gas of fear seeping into your own mind:

* acknowledge it;

* find your way back to reality with deep breaths;

* reconnect with what really matters: your love for the grieving person in front of you

Let’s walk through my personal process together. It’s smoother than you’d expect.

When I feel the fear of another’s grief rising, I know it in my body first.

My hand instinctively jerks up, palm flat against my chest to protect my heart. (Sound familiar?)

The adrenaline floods in next, generating a prickly sensation that spreads out from the space under my hand.

In response, I pause, bow my head, and take a deep breath.

In that moment, fear gives way to sadness — sadness for their loss, sadness for what they are going through.

I know that feeling.

I don’t have experience with every kind of loss, but my motivation to console does not require identical experience.

It merely requires a movement from fear and sadness into love. 

And so I let my sadness, sympathy, compassion — combined with focus on who really matters — remind me of how much I love them.

How, more than anything, I want to be here for them in this moment.

And how, surprisingly but surely, my heart can expand to hold them, all of them, including their grief.

Trust your heart. Get out of your head. Breathe. Don’t let your emotions talk you out of action. Not now, not when it really counts.

Because how often do we truly get the chance to improve others’ lives?

Loving others through their grief is one of the toughest things we are called on to do as humans. Rise to the challenge. In the process, you will change the griever’s life… and your own.

Step 2: The bare minimum matters.

We have rituals in our culture around loss: attending the funeral, bringing food for the family, sending sympathy cards. These are just table stakes. Do them all. 

Let’s take a look at the seemingly least impactful act of consolation: sending a note.

After Mike died, I received floods of messages, emails, letters, cards. Some were more thoughtful and heartfelt than others. Some more well-written, some with misspellings. But I hardly noticed. I tore into each one, eager for the solace…

Because they all represented people who loved me or had loved Mike; who cared enough to do something. 

These “niceties” demonstrated that Mike, and the family he had just left behind, would not be forgotten.

And although I could not see it at the time, they also demonstrated one of my foundational beliefs — that human connection is the path to a more vibrant life.

I was on the receiving end of tangible artifacts channeling connection.

And with each one, I felt a little less alone. 

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Why stop at supportive when we can reach life-changing?

Step 3: The little things that make the big difference.

Here are three choices. Pick one when you are doing the hard work of consolation, either in a written message, a voicemail, or face-to-face, tissues at the ready. 

Option 1: Be a witness

Option 2: Tell a story

Option 3: Ask a question

Be a witness.

In his song “Place to Start,” Mike Shinoda laments the feeling of being left behind after his Linkin Park bandmate Chester Bennington died by suicide. 

The song aptly describes our confusion after abrupt loss with the lyrics, I don’t need to know the end, all I want is a place to start. 

What most moves me about the song comes at the very end where Shinoda includes a series of voicemails from his friends. They are checking in, expressing their love and support, and not expecting a call back. 

They are bearing witness to his suffering. 

Innate in witnessing is the consolation of comfort. Checking in through a text or a voicemail is comfort. Your presence alongside someone is comfort. Your listening ear, firm hug, shared tears — all of these are comfort. 

Comfort is the life preserver we must toss to anyone sinking into the deep loneliness that accompanies grief.

It may not be able to pull one back in the boat but it helps them survive for the moment. It ensures the griever continues to float… until they are strong enough to pull themselves aboard. 

Bearing witness is about abiding alongside those who have lost — just being with them as they struggle through the waves in their journey. 

Not fixing, not solving, not offering advice. 

Just being. 

When we are grieving, it is all we can do to survive — to float.

And someone sitting there with us — without explaining to us that we just need to learn how to swim, that we never should have been in the ocean in the first place, that they once had a friend floating in the ocean, or that all floating happens for a reason — dignifies us.

It honors that we are doing the best we can. 

Often people trying to fix, solve, give advice inadvertently cause their grieving loved one to feel worse. Like they could be doing better… should be doing better.

But I believe grieving is the best thing they can be doing.

I believe grief is a deep alchemical process with transformative powers our rational minds can't understand.

So simply supporting someone’s grieving process with your presence, your comfort, your witness is far more powerful than any advice anyone could offer. 

Tell a story.

In the weeks after my husband’s death, I would walk down to the mailbox every afternoon, making the return trip back up the driveway with an armful of randomly sized envelopes, packages, fliers, and catalogs. 

I’d separate out the bills, insurance forms, and all the other white-business-envelope-sized torturous paperwork of death. Then I would take all the colored Hallmark-envelope-sized missives or odd shaped packets, set them in a pile, and settle in for some reading. 

Reading about Mike. 

People sent me pictures, poems and prayer cards, tiny angel and cardinal pins, ribbons, children’s crayon pictures… ephemera which were all direct expressions of consolation. I held these all dear.

If I opened a card or envelope and saw cursive handwriting filling the paper, I knew that meant a story. Stories were my favorite…

Stories of how Mike mentored them and made them better at work.

Stories of how Mike was a kind and caring friend during their college years.

Stories of how Mike’s singing voice was the thing they remembered best about him all these years later.

Stories about how his team would try to get him to put mayonnaise on his sandwich at lunch but he was too much of a health nut to do it.

Stories about angry clients that Mike calmly responded to by pulling all-nighters, studying all the issues and eventually, invariably coming up with a solution that calmed the client down and saved the day. 

And stories about how much his love for his family showed through in everything he did. 

I loved them so much I saved them all. Seriously, I’ve got boxes. Because these stories told me something new about my husband. 

Yes of course, I knew he was a great mentor, kind, quirky, and an amazing singer who loved his family. But these people were sharing an interaction they had with Mike that I had not experienced. With each retelling he came alive for me again. 

These stories became my treasure. 

Because anyone who has lost someone is now clutching their memories for dear life, fearful of losing a single one, because they know they won’t be adding more…

And when you share with them a story only you know, you give them an infusion — transforming their lost loved one from a two-dimensional photo back into the dynamic being they were.

You give them something to add to their experience in the midst of so much being taken away. 

It will be their treasure too. 

Ask a question.

I have a very large collection of books on life after loss. In the early months of my grief, I could not stomach the “how to” books — the proscriptive way of dealing with my blown-up world. (Remember when I was talking about how “advice” can sometimes be counterproductive to the grieving process?)

What I could read were memoirs — descriptive stories of how people dealt with their own loss or their imminent deaths. I referred to these books as the “Grief Canon”. 

In an incandescent little book titled A Month in Siena, Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Hisham Matar takes his own month of consolation after writing a heart-rending memoir on the ambiguous loss of his father in the Libyan Civil War.

Touched by death, his openness to others’ grief can be a model for us all. 

Hisham is having a light conversation with his Italian language tutor over an ice cream when the conversation turns to her father. She shares that he died just one year before. 

“Tell me about him,” Hisham says.

This allows her to share a story about her late father’s love of Dante, and brings her father’s presence there between them for a few moments. Yes, there is sadness. But there is laughter too. And most importantly, love.

(Note that many people would apologetically change the topic in order to “save” the person in front of us from having to reopen a tender wound. I think we partially do this because we are saving ourselves.)

Similarly to retelling memories, when we ask a question to the living about their lost, we breathe new life back into their loved one.

We allow them to commune with that lost relationship, to reignite that lost love, to remember fondly rather than solely with pain.

Then a piece of that love can live on in us — the outsider — as well. What a gift. 

In summary

This is my attempt at bringing consolation back into our lexicon.

And much more importantly, into our actions.

So…

Be a witness.

Tell a story.

Ask a question.

If you are already confident in your powers of consolation, fantastic. Share some of your ideas with me in the comments below!

Then go forth and act. 

Don’t overthink it. Do it. Console better. 

In consolation,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

Ok, buckle your seatbelts. I promise not all podcasts will be so intense but we really must start with the thing that makes us turn away from thinking about death… 

FEAR

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Fear is an amorphous feeling, filling every nook and cranny in our brain like a colorless, odorless gas. Before we know it, our thinking gets scrambled and our body follows suit with a rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, and a desire to run away. 

Let’s trap some of that gas in a beaker and examine it more closely — identifying which characteristics of the death conversation drive our logical minds into hiding and cause our reptilian instincts to take over. 

In a slim booklet titled simply, Death, writer Julian Barnes seeks to give shape and definition to our universal but rarely examined fear of death with a fundamental question:

“Are you afraid of dying or are you afraid of death?”

When I first read this, I was completely struck. I never considered breaking down my death fears to further understand them. 

I am firmly “afraid of dying”. Mr. Barnes, on the other hand, is “afraid of death”.

Intrigued, I presented this question to friends to see which side of the line they fell on.

Turns out, there are many reasons to fear death beyond just the two Barnes laid out... 

And I want us to look at a few right here, in the relatively safe context of a newsletter, as practice.

Practice doing something scary, practice staying in a balanced mental state at the same time, and practice learning what death has to teach us… rather than just running from it.

Because it turns out what we are afraid of in death tells us a lot about what we care about in life.

Fear of leaving a loved one behind to suffer

This fear came up a considerable amount in my conversations. It pivots the perspective from our own personal demise to its impact on those we love.

We live in terror of their broken hearts upon our death.

As a person who sits squarely in this camp, I can tell you acknowledging this fear has made me much better at prioritizing.

My kids are 100% the most important things in my life.

Connecting (however briefly) to my anxiety around leaving them behind always refocuses my life to ensure they are at the center, while enhancing my joy of spending quality time with them. 

Or even spent waiting to spend quality time with them!

Since both my kids are teenagers, I hang around in the kitchen to catch their comings and goings, snagging fifteen minutes together where I can.

I tell them I love them constantly – in person, in texts, in emails.

I find excuses (which they see right through) to pop into their rooms and share a fact they didn’t really need to know, or ask if a stray sock I found is theirs, then steal a kiss on the cheek and a hug.

I take them on trips to the mountains of Colorado, hike with them on our favorite Northern Virginia trails, and engage in chip-eating contests at our our local Tex-Mex joint.

We laugh a lot and make memories together. 

I am there for them. And I regret very little.

Fear of losing a loved one

And of course on the flip side of leaving someone we love behind is getting left behind ourselves… of facing life without our beloveds, our parents, our children, our friends. 

Prior to my husband’s death, I would have said this terrified me the most. In the last six years I have learned so much. I have walked through that hell and out of the other side to find something miraculous.

So while this fear is absolutely real (and I still have it myself for all the people I love), I know how profound its teachings can be.

I know how the reality (or thought experiment) of losing your beloved can open your eyes to a brand new way of being — one that reads more like a technicolor movie than the stereotypical life of a widow.

Purpose, connection, meaning.

Wonder, mystery, awe.

And a devotion to maximizing the here and now.

To making a difference in the lives of the ones I love — and the ones I don’t know at all. To rich conversations late at night, heartfelt letters sent for no reason, and real connection over shared vulnerabilities.

To the realization that, in one way or another, not even death can take away the love that we share.

We get to keep the love.

Just last week, I wrote a post about how my eyes opened to the miracles of life after Mike passed away — and how maybe we can learn these lessons an easier way.

Read or listen to “Why I wouldn’t trade away the grief” here.

Fear of being “responsible” for our own deaths and letting people down

This fear puzzled me when I first heard it. In a conversation with my friend Alex, he explained this fear means you could have prevented your death in some way (eat healthier, don’t ride unicycles) but didn’t. 

You didn’t do enough and now your family is left holding the bag. 

Alex is the primary breadwinner and provider, and when we spoke, it clicked for me that Alex and Mike shared similarities.

In a decade-old letter I found after Mike’s death, he was ruminating on what would happen if he died and whether he had done enough for us. “Maybe it is the good, ole provider instinct in me,” he wrote. 

Now, I’m not advocating anyone counteracts this fear by working more, stressing more, denying ourselves the good things of life more.

In fact, just the opposite.

What this fear has taught me, and what I believe it taught Mike as well – to use a phrase not often thrown around in common vernacular – is how to live honorably. 

How to embrace maturity in the metaphysical sense.

How to hold both the 30,000-ft perspective of generations to come and the effervescent impermanence of this moment, together, in your open hands. 

How to find the balance between your short-sighted desires (deep-fried oreos or cliff diving), your family’s long-term security, and the present moment.

I do not envy anyone wrestling with this three-way teeter-totter. But I can promise that this fear is a thorough teacher…

And if you learn the lessons it’s trying to teach, you will live a good life. Mike did.

Fear of not achieving what we want in life

Two very good friends, Paul and Andy, who don’t know each other and live an ocean apart, shared this fear with me. 

Both men are good eggs and high achievers with careers that are their passions. But they both feel there is so much more to do, to accomplish, and having their lives cut short before they’re “done” fills them with dread. 

They felt somewhat sheepish about it, but our fears are our fears. They are not here to be piled on with judgment. 

And to their surprise, I smiled as they each described it to me.

Because I saw how it was a pivotal factor in all they had done already…

This fear has the magic power of clarifying – making it abundantly clear what you actually care about versus what you think you should care about.

Maybe you don’t really care about making a million dollars, but you want your work to leave a legacy.

Maybe you aren’t lit up by the idea of traveling the world, but rather by the fantasy of building your dream home overlooking the sea.

Or maybe, similar to the first two fears, your biggest priority is organizing your life so you can spend more time with your family — celebrating with them when they succeed and supporting them when things don’t go their way.

This fear asks you, “What are the things you just don’t want to miss?”

And then it reminds you to take steps towards them today.

It reduces excuses about putting your lifelong dreams and goals first… because you just don’t know how long your life will be. 

For example, I got a kick in the pants to stop putting off and start embracing my two loves of travel and of marking milestones.

So I celebrated my 50th birthday (two years after Mike died) with a blowout trip to Patagonia – solo.

Bringing it home

In one of a thousand paradoxes around death, defining what we are actually afraid of helps us better understand the mystery of life.

Because it turns out many of us fear something more than dying — we fear not living.

To that end, in this post we’ve broken down numerous potential fears. We’ve looked at my examples and the examples of others. We’ve breached the walls of this terrifying topic without our reptilian brains forcing us to flee.

The only thing left?

To figure out what scares you about death. And how it motivates you to live a better life.

So put some of your ‘fear gas’ into a beaker for further examination. Take the next few days to be with your thoughts. Write them down.

Talk to people about it. Share this post, if it feels right, to get the conversation flowing.

Are there other fears that come to mind? Other reasons to take life by the reins, embracing the little control we actually have, and make the most of it – guided by our own values and priorities?

I look forward to reading anything you feel like sharing in the comments below.

With gratitude,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

A recurring word you will see here in The Luminist is ‘aliveness’ — somewhat cheesy but sincerely meant to convey the flamboyant richness of life that can light up our minds and bodies. 

The abundance. 

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

Aliveness is an apt description of the technicolor way I now experience the world. “Now,” as in since my husband unexpectedly died six years ago.

It doesn’t mean that it’s all rainbows and unicorns.

What it means is that I process life with depth and feeling — high highs, low lows. I see the details, feel the connections, and regularly experience awe that moves me to tears.

I did not wake up the day after my husband’s death feeling this way. I earned this worldview — this aliveness — on my Joseph-Campbell-style hero’s journey. 

I’d say I earned it the hard way but it is not as if there was another option. The hard way was the only way on offer. 

So I want to offer you, dear reader, a glimpse of how I got from there to here.  

Don’t get me wrong — I’d do crazy things to get Mike back. In the early days I even used to shout out to the heavens, “You can come back now!”

But I can’t deny that his death transformed my life in ways I could not imagine.

Not the substance of my life — my children lost their father after all — but the quality of it. And I’ve discovered that’s what really matters.

So I offer my story as a testimonial. A lighthouse perhaps… to anyone lost in the dark early days. Or anyone who dares to face — and prepare for — their eventual voyage through grief before it's forced upon them.

I offer my story as a promise that there is a light on the other side of unimaginable loss. (The rest of The Luminist’s posts will be the directions, short-cuts, and scenic detours.)

The beginning of Mike & Sue

I don’t believe in coincidences. Serendipity (another word that you will see repeatedly here at The Luminist) is my term of choice. It reflects my view of the world that connections are made in mysterious ways our brains were not meant to understand or explain away. 

The first mysterious connection for Mike and I was the picture-taking line on the first day of business school. 

Here we are at 24 and 26 years old, moments after we met.

We exchanged a quick handshake and introduction. I said in my head, “Wow, he’s so handsome! He must be a real jerk. I’ll avoid him for the next two years.” Clearly that did not last. 

Soon I learned that he was kind and intense with a surprisingly beautiful singing voice. An antique lover, a world traveler, and the owner of a silky terrier named Molly. It seemed like a ridiculous dog for a 20-something college student to be taking care of…

Turns out his beloved mom had died just four years before and Molly was his last remnant of her. 

As for me, I was confident, determined, and independent. We met in the middle as we worked our way through his traumatizing losses and my communication shortcomings.

After graduation we both jumped into consulting gigs that required us to travel most of the time. We didn’t worry about seeing each other. We knew we would find a way to make it work. 

My first assignment was in London. His, much to his chagrin, was Little Rock, AR. Once a month I would come back across the Atlantic to see him. And every visit I would think, “Is this the time? Will he propose?”

I knew we’d get there eventually but the healing from his mother’s death — his ability to trust, to jump in, and risk another devastating loss — had its own timing I could not predict. 

My London assignment was wrapping up. Mike joined me for my last weekend. “Surely this is it…” I thought to myself. I had arranged for dinner at a brand new restaurant with wide-open views of the Thames river, St. Paul’s cathedral, and all the beauty of the city. When we stepped out the door to do some touristing before dinner, Mike said, “Oh, I don’t think I need my jacket.” It was a cloudless May day after all. 

No jacket, no pocket. No pocket, no engagement ring. Damn.

We hit the Tube, toured the Tower of London, walked the ancient, winding streets, sipped coffee on the South Bank. We had a lovely dinner followed by a stroll along the Thames. We stepped out onto a pier to take in the sparkly lights and sneak in a kiss.

Suddenly he produced a tiny box from nowhere and asked me to be his wife.

After tears and a resounding YES from me, I asked, “Where have you been carrying that thing all day?”

“In my sock!” he responded.

A year later, we were married. 

Since our engagement, London had become the city of our heart. Every five years on the big anniversaries, we would steal away for a weekend… and rediscover why we married each other. 

Our last milestone anniversary was at the 15 year mark (we were married for 18 by the time he died). 

Life was particularly hectic at that anniversary. We were on the “ebb” end of the ebb and flow.

But even on the drive to the airport I could feel us reconnecting. Kid-free, errand-free, work-free, face-to-face time, really looking at and listening to each other, brought that thread that always connected us taut again. 

We did our usual miles of walking. We held hands. We took in the Tate Modern, talked about the kids endlessly, and fell back in love.

I teased him, “Oh, I remember why I married you!” 

And the final story of the Deagles before we went from four to three… here is a snapshot five months before Mike died: our last Father’s day.

Mike and the kids played “I’m still on the raft” in the swimming pool. Connor and Kendall would try to toss Mike off the raft while he clung on for dear life, laughing the entire time. 

Then came a few rounds of our favorite card games — Go Fish and B******t — always searching for the mysterious missing cards stuck under someone’s leg.

At the end of the day we headed out for oversized ice cream cones that sent us into comas as we watched an Avengers movie. 

The worst part

What came next? 

There are no pictures of these days.

Sadness, tears, despair. Anxiety, memory loss, flares of anger. Sleeplessness. Endless worry about the kids, the finances, my job. Feeling untethered.

50 times a day I would think, “I need to tell Mike this,” only to realize over and over and over again there was no Mike to tell.

And a fleeting desire to no longer be in the world…

But also during that time appeared the support of friends, family, schools, and even strangers. You would be amazed at how many strangers. (I’ll write about them in future posts.)

On the back of that support, out of the ashes, I gradually built my new life. 

I worked on school assignments with the kids. I managed projects, emails, office politics at work. I laughed until I cried over terribly dark jokes with friends who “got it.”

There was always another wave of despair around the corner, but likely a generous helping of “I will survive this” after that. 

Honestly, the rollercoaster of emotions was one of the most exhausting parts. Never knowing what emotion was going to show up next — and if it would be in public or private. 

When the aliveness started to trickle in

One day on a hike, I reached out and felt the spring leaves with my hands, rubbing their tissue-paper newness between my fingers. 

I never knew leaves felt like this when they first unfolded. 

And I never would have checked if I hadn’t just spent months with all my senses dampened with grief. 

My early-days walks in the woods had been tear-filled treks spent in my anxious and despairing mind. It’s like I had been moving through water, unable to see details, ears stuffed and muffled, taste and smell non-existent. And now — without meaning to at all — I was re-emerging.

Maybe it was by some unconscious choice, or maybe it was just time for the season of grief to change.

Whatever the reason, I began to notice my surroundings in a new way. I made a new discovery in the natural world every day that lit up my brain and my body with curiosity and wonder. 

I felt like a child, but with the gratitude and appreciation of an adult… who never thought she would touch joy again. But now, I would never take it for granted again.

Here is a one-dimensional glimpse of that wonder:

Another aliveness ally: Books

Reading had always been my comfort and escape. Could it now become a place where I didn’t feel so alone?

With the ferocity of desperation, I consumed any book I found on the topic.

Who had experienced what I had? Could reading their stories help me with my deep sadness? Could someone show me that I was not going to feel this horrible forever?

Yes. Relief.

Joan Didion made me feel not so alone in my occasional belief that maybe Mike was just around the corner and wasn’t really dead.

“I was thinking as small children think, as if my thoughts or wishes had the power to reverse the narrative, to change the outcome,” she wrote in The Year of Magical Thinking. 

C.S. Lewis filled me with hope that Mike was there even after he died (and that I wasn’t losing my mind) in A Grief Observed by writing about his late wife, 

“Suddenly, at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H the least, I remembered her best. Indeed it was something (almost) better than a memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed the barrier… And the remarkable thing is that since I stopped bothering about it, she seems to meet me everywhere.”

That final bit, “she seems to meet me everywhere,” has saved me many times.

The discoveries here were just as rich as those found in nature. These writers had suffered in similar ways. There was wisdom, candor, humor… and a hope for a thriving life further down the path.

My first tentative steps toward aliveness were made with these books in hand — teaching me by example how to turn grief into life:

My final aliveness piece: Service

Pre-catastrophe, I was an intense and devoted corporate executive focused on climbing the career ladder at a large company that runs US military bases all over the globe.

Surrounded by people, I was still mostly about “me me me.”

Afterwards? My focus changed.

I needed to provide for my family, but I wanted to impact other human beings — more human beings! — in the same way people had impacted me by helping me through my grief. 

My job gave me a platform and I seized it. 

I spent hundred of hours listening intently to women who work in dining halls and water treatment plants, cyber centers and mailrooms on bases off the beaten path. They spoke proudly of serving young soldiers so far from home, and never complained… though there were more than a few things to complain about.

I discovered these women shared a profound need for community and connection, and I poured my life force into it.

As I write this today, I’m at our third Women’s Summit in the Middle East. Every year the women of my company gather here to ensure we are continuing to build a community of support, skill, diversity, equity, inclusion, and allyship in our defense contractor workplace. 

Thanks to grief, I no longer have any propensity for shying away from hard topics… In fact, I welcome them.

And at the end of the first summit, many women personally thanked me for “going there.” 

Because once the proverbial elephant in the room has been acknowledged, grappled with, learned from, and eventually thanked, everyone stands a little straighter, shines a little brighter, hugs a little tighter. 

Also thanks to my experience with grief, I know the power of embracing one’s innate strength. That “dig deep” place.

Sometimes we’ve forgotten it and need to be reminded. Sometimes we have never even been told we have it. 

So at this conference, we don’t just talk about “why it’s so important to have strength and power and purpose…”

We recognize it in each other, point it out so we can see it in ourselves, and, through community and support, breathe life back into it. 

And that’s how we end up smiling like this, with power and purpose and communal confidence all over our faces:

Six years later

So here we are, my kids and I, just a few months ago. 

Can you see the light in our eyes?

Many people still expect us to be dressed in sackcloth with faces covered in ash, yet we are very much alive. 

We are taking full advantage of our time on earth, because we know how short it can be. We connect deeply, feel fully, express freely because our hearts have been cracked open.

We are very much living.

We have been too close to the other end of the spectrum to ever forget how important this is.

Is it always a walk in the park? Absolutely not. Do we carry the scars of our loss deep in our bones? 1000% yes. 

The scars are just signs we live. And in some mysterious way, Mike lives too. 

He lives in the way we talk about him, about his absence, about what he might think of our lives now, about funny stories from the past.

He lives in the way we choose to be more present, more courageous, more true to ourselves.

He lives in this newsletter, in the passion that pours from me to change the way the living dance with death and grief…

And that was the long version of why because of — not despite! — my loss, I am living a vibrant, technicolor life today.

This story is not an outlier. I said it in my last post and I’ll probably say it a thousand times more.

How my kids and I have survived and thrived shows how anyone can survive and thrive as individuals and communities. 

And that’s what I want to bring to this space — LIFE.

Rich, vibrant, pulsing with meaning and connection. Not despite the grief. Because of it.

Sincerely,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

In our culture, discussing death is taboo — wrapped in fear, uncertainty, anxiety. We have become so disconnected from the personal and collective experience of death and its aftermath that we treat life’s end like the monster under the bed…

(By the way, you can have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, by subscribing at theluminist.substack.com.)

We don’t know exactly what is under there, but we are terrified of it and avoid thinking about it at all costs. 

It was not always this way! Less than 100 years ago, death was integrated into our lives.

Our churches/temples/mosques, our rituals, our communities, our families all supported this difficult and inevitable part of being human. We took care of our dying loved ones at home, we spent time with their bodies after they had passed, and we taught our children that death was part of life. 

We were more entwined with nature and understood that its cycles were ours too — birth, death, renewal. 

We formed shared opinions about the afterlife. We offered solace to those who were grieving through shared meals and gatherings. We helped each other move from surviving to eventually thriving once again. 

Now in the 2020’s, we’ve lost this context.

Even the pandemic — with 15 million lives lost according to the WHO — has not changed our ways of approaching death and loss. Arguably, it has pushed death even further down into our subconscious, with more layers of avoidance piled on top. 

Why does ignoring the topic of death matter?

Can’t we just keep not thinking, let alone not talking about death?

Hiding from things that scare us versus talking about and preparing for things that scare us… Which sounds like a recipe for a better life? Especially for something as inexorable as death?

By not talking about it, we’re making the monster under the bed scarier.

Death and loss are scary and hard and debilitating enough. Combining it with humans’ general fear of the unknown seems like twisting the knife. 

What’s more, we are depriving ourselves of the opportunity to learn how to manage it better. To dance with it better. To make the rest of our lives better. Yes. To make the rest of our lives better. I say this from experience. (More on that below.) 

Which is where The Luminist comes in…

(This funny little corner of the internet where you seemed to have found yourself!)

At The Luminist, we are creating an online community dedicated to discussing and demystifying the processes of grief and loss.

A forum where where we can bring our full selves, not just the happy bits.

A conversation devoted to shining a light on death, grief, and loss to help us console better, suffer less, and live more vibrant lives.

At The Luminist we are talking about the nitty gritty of death, loss, and grieving. 

What are we specifically afraid of about death? How does it feel to lose a loved one? How have we been consoled well? How have we been consoled poorly? How have we transformed? How have people survived and thrived? What are the mindsets that help us? How do memory, time, mystery, perspective, connection, nature all fit into the picture?

Most importantly, we’re talking about the way death and loss change our lives.

We’re talking about the way surviving something so impossibly hard — supported by meaningful connection and our own inner strength — makes us more alive.

More purpose-driven, more prioritized, more focused, more aware, more connected. More human.

So, bringing death out of the shadows matters profoundly. It matters because it will change our lives for the better. 

If this sounds like something you’re interested in exploring, sign up to receive The Luminist delivered right to your inbox every Saturday.

What are my qualifications?

In 2016 I was one half of a happily married, go-getter American duo. Two kids, two jobs, lots of adventure, a fair share of stress, tons of love. Then that life disappeared in an instant when my intense, spectacular, vibrant, and healthy husband Mike died suddenly of a heart attack at age 50.

What I lost was unimaginable and myriad. What I gained was completely unexpected. Mysterious. Deep. Profound. Empowering. Shocking. 

Now, I am a student of what death means for the living.

Yes, I had the unwelcome experience of being thrown into the deep end. Torn to shreds. Blasted to bits. But since then, I have rebuilt my life with a profound sense of wonder and awe.

I have been stunned to find meaning in loss in all kinds of places — from the intellectual to the emotional, from the sacred to the mundane, from nature to spending time in deep connection with my fellow human beings. 

And now I am on a mission to share what I have learned with you — and also to learn more from you… so we can change each other and the world.

What about you?

This space is about you. What might you be seeking if you landed on this post? Here are some possibilities:

* How the hell do people survive and maybe even thrive after a devastating loss?

* How will I deal with this when it is my turn to dance with profound grief (even though I hope it will never actually be my turn)?

* I have been through a loss but nobody wants to talk with me about it and I feel isolated… Can I find support from this community so I don’t have to edit myself or sweep things under the rug?

* My friend/loved one/coworker/acquaintance just lost someone and I don’t know how to help, can you give me some ideas?

* I am afraid. Can you help me be less so? Can you help me be more alive?

We will dive into all these questions and more. 

We are going to tell stories, share wisdom, study books, movies, songs, art. We are going to swap resources, bust myths, shed tears, examine old ideas and generate new ones, share a dash of gallows humor, and generate insights on this fundamental human experience. 

And we will no longer feel alone. 

Speaking of… you’re always welcome to use these little blue buttons to email this post to a someone, anyone, you think it might benefit.

One crucially important note: this is not a place for toxic positivity. 

This is a place for us to engage and recognize the lingering sadness and longing that accompany loss, while simultaneously opening to its transformative power and the resulting aliveness on the other side.

This is a movement.

I am here because I have absorbed loss and grief in a way that has powered my life… And filled me with light, purpose, connection, and meaning.

I know I’m not an exception or an outlier. I know this kind of transformation is possible for others…

So I want to share my insights and discover more with anyone who dares to join me in this conversation.

To that end, I offer you a space in this community and dialogue as a seeker, questioner, contributor, observer — really in any way works for you. 

It’s a tough subject.

Thanks for your courage and bravery in joining me. I know it will make our lives better.

Welcome to The Luminist: shining a light on death for the living.

Sincerely,

Sue

(Subscribe to the Luminist to have it delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.)

My most popular posts:

Post #2: Why I wouldn’t trade away the grief: While I would give anything to have my late husband back, my life is more vibrant, more meaningful, more miraculous thanks to the lessons of grief and loss.

Post #22: The resilience experiment: If you can learn from “failure” without self-judgment, you can be resilient.

Post #13: We are not islands: Releasing the myths of avoidance and isolation.

Post #4: Console better: The profound power of bearing witness, sharing stories, and asking questions.

Post #17: Mystery is my religion: We can’t escape chaos. But we can reframe it.

Post #6: The radiance in dailiness: Grief taught me to see the magic in the “ordinary”. Let me show you an easier way.