#107: This deathiversary I mostly smiled.

Letting emotions come and go without worrying too much about why.

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Last Friday, I set my alarm for 5:30am.

Blinking my bleary eyes as if that would help them adjust to the pre-dawn dark, I changed from my PJs into my workout clothes, then got on the treadmill at max incline for 30 minutes.

Then I meditated for 20.

Then I showered for 10.

I was getting myself awake and amped up for a 7:30am fireside chat with Carlos Saba and Laurence McCahill, the founders of The Happy Startup (based in the UK, which explains the early call time).

The title of our chat: Embracing Everything, from Loss to Aliveness

Appropriate, considering it was the eighth anniversary of Mike’s death. 

You can watch the replay of Embracing Everything, from Loss to Aliveness here.

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When Carlos and I were setting the date for the fireside chat weeks ago, it didn’t even register to me what November 15th was. 

This seems preposterous, but it’s the truth. We were anchoring on Fridays in November, clicking through possible days.

“Nope, can’t do that one, I’ll be in New Orleans for parent’s weekend.” 

“Nope, can’t do that one, that’s Thanksgiving here in the USA.” 

So November 15th was just an empty white box on my calendar that looked perfect for scheduling. I don’t put “Anniversary of Mike’s Death” in my google calendar like I would a kid’s birthday or Christmas Day. So the morning looked sufficiently blank. 

My reaction, once I realized the scheduling overlap?  

“Perfect”. 

After all, I started The Luminist on Mike’s sixth deathiversary, while also keynoting the V2X women’s conference in Kuwait. However, that November both crossovers were intentional — I was proud of what I had made in the aftermath of Mike’s death and excited to weave the “bitter” and “sweet” strands together.

Last year, however, I didn’t do anything grand, accidentally or on purpose. Instead, I cried for days.

And before that… Before that is hard to remember. But I do remember that I used to tell my family and friends not to text me. I wanted to control my sorrow. And random, intermittent texts popping up, intended to soothe, would have the opposite effect.

This is one of the quirks of grief that you just don’t know until you go through it. Turns out that sadness, while a constant companion in the beginning, eventually develops it’s own weather pattern that is impossible to predict. And as the years go by, new emotions appear on the radar too — gratitude, empowerment, awe.

My emotions feel beyond my control, just like they did in the acute stage of grief. But this no longer scares me. I trust that it won’t rain for more than a week or so at a time, and I’ve been through enough sparkling sunny days that I’m pretty sure one will come again.

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I’ve said many times in this space that I worship mystery.

Because not knowing has brought me so much wonder and peace.

Not having to:

• understand everything;

• have an explanation for everything;

• have a solution for everything…

… opens me.

Embracing this truth (yes, I said truth) is the biggest change I’ve experienced since Mike’s death, and feels at the core of the vibrant life I get to live today.  

However, mystery is not all rainbows and unicorns. It has a sharp edge. Mystery is sometimes just a pretty way of saying uncertainty, insecurity, fear. The unpleasant reality that a rogue wave of grief could take me by surprise and take me down at any moment will always exist. 

But I can’t believe in mystery only when it’s convenient. If I start micro-managing my feelings, every moment of sadness will become a failure. And every moment of contentedness will be dissected rather than enjoyed.

So I give myself to the mystery of emotion.

I let the clouds float by overhead, looking for shapes in the sky… instead of trying to figure out how to make them come and go when it works best for me.

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Carlos, Laurence, and I had a tech-challenged but heartfelt chat.

Then I hopped into Kendall’s little blue Mazda and made the six-hour drive north to Colgate University for Connor’s Fall a capella concert. The same place I cried a lot this time last year. 

As I cruised up past Gettysburg, Harrisburg, Scranton, and got off on the windy country roads toward Colgate, I took in my surroundings — broken down barns, broken down cars, barren trees, arms outstretched to the sky as if beseeching for snow to turn post-autumn emptiness into a winter wonderland. I listened to a podcast my good buddy Karl sent me. I finished an audiobook about the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I talked to Richie on the phone. 

Then I got to see my giant little boy. He’s having the best senior year, filled with leadership lessons and deep human connection.

And finally an a capella concert that filled a college chapel with hope and youth and promise.

In other words, this November 15th, I didn’t feel sad. I felt joy. 

Who knows what the ninth anniversary of Mike’s death will feel like… or the tenth, twentieth, thirtieth. What I do know is, there will be moments of sadness, despair, loneliness, frustration that have nothing to do with the exact date when a Fairfax County Hospital ER room was lit like the sun as my world eclipsed into darkness. 

When we are open to it all, the sadness will show up at the right time. Not a time we would prefer, but the time when the emotion is ripe and ready to drop from the vine. It’s funny how humans have gotten so separated from the organic nature of our own emotions. They have a wisdom, even if it doesn’t fit neatly into our lunch break.

But I have learned to trust it, because while some deathiversaries feel like crawling across broken glass, some feel like a cozy autumn day, chatting with friends, mooning over my son, and borrowing my daughter’s sporty car for a joy ride.

In the flow,

P.S. Check out

Carlos Saba

’s substack

The Midlife Guide

for many more interviews and blogs about how to turn midlife from a crisis into an opportunity.

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